THE  RELATION  OF 
LITERATURE  TO  LIFE 


C.D.WARNER 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

OIKT  OP" 


CUWJJ. 

Received  ,  IQO 

Accession  No.       8.3.62.9..  •    Clots  No. 


THE    RELATION 

OF 

LITEEATUEE    TO    LIFE 


BY 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER   &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

1897 


BY  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 


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A; 


NOTE 


THE  paper  that  gives  the  title  to  this  volume 
of  essays  has  not  been  printed  before.  The 
other  papers  have  appeared  from  time  to  time 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  the  Century  Maga 
zine,  and  I  desire  to  express  my  sincere  thanks 
for  the  privilege  of  reproducing  them.  They 
have  been  selected  for  their  general  relation  to 
the  theme  of  the  title  essay,  that  is  to  say,  the 
connection  between  our  literary,  educational, 
and  social  progress.  The  dates  of  their  first 
publication  are  given  in  explanation  of  the  al 
lusions  to  passing  events. 

C.  D.  W. 


83629 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE  RELATION  OF  LITERATURE  TO  LIFE  .  .  1 

SIMPLICITY 43 

"EQUALITY" 57 

WHAT  is  YOUR  CULTURE  TO  ME  ?  .  99 

MODERN  FICTION 133 

THOUGHTS  SUGGESTED  BY  MR.  FROUDE'S 

"PROGRESS" 169 

ENGLAND 207 

THE  ENGLISH  VOLUNTEERS  DURING  THE  LATE 

INVASION 243 

THE  NOVEL  AND  THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  .  .  261 

A  NIGHT  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  THE  TUILERIES  .  297 


THE   RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO 
LIFE 


THE   RELATION   OF  LITERATURE  TO 
LIFE 

[This  paper  was  prepared  and  delivered  at  several 
of  our  universities  as  introductory  to  a  course  of  five 
lectures  which  insisted  on  the  value  of  literature  in 
common  life  —  some  hearers  though^,  with  an  exag 
gerated  emphasis— and  attempted  to  maintain  the  thesis 
that  all  genuine,  enduring  literature  is  the  outcome  of 
the  time  that  produces  it,  is  responsive  to  the  general 
sentiment  of  its  time  ;  that  this  close  relation  to  hu 
man  life  insures  its  welcome  ever  after  as  a  true  rep 
resentation  of  human  nature  ;  and  that  consequently 
the  most  remunerative  method  of  studying  a  litera 
ture  is  to  study  the  people  for  whom  it  was  produced. 
Illustrations  of  this  were  drawn  from  the  Greek,  the 
French,  and  the  English  literatures.  This  study  al 
ways  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  meaning  of  the 
text  of  an  old  author,  the  same  light  that  the  reader 
unconsciously  has  upon  contemporary  pages  dealing  with 
the  life  with  which  he  is  familiar.  The  reader  can  test 
this  by  taking  up  his  Shakespeare  after  a  thorough  in- 


4  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

vestigation  of  the  customs,  manners,  and  popular  life 
of  the  Elizabethan  period.  Of  course  the  converse  is 
true  that  good  literature  is  an  open  door  into  the  life 
and  mode  of  thought  of  the  time  and  place  where  it 
originated.] 


I  HAD  a  vision  once — you  may  all  have  had 
a  like  one  —  of  the  stream  of  time  flowing 
through  a  limitless  land.  Along  its  banks 
sprang  up  in  succession  the  generations  of 
man.  They  did  not  move  with  the  stream — 
they  lived  their  lives  and  sank  away ;  and  al 
ways  below  them  new  generations  appeared, 
to  play  their  brief  parts  in  what  is  called  his 
tory — the  sequence  of  human  actions.  The 
stream  flowed  on,  opening  for  itself  forever  a 
way  through  the  land.  I  saw  that  these  suc 
cessive  dwellers  on  the  stream  were  busy  in 
constructing  and  setting  afloat  vessels  of  vari 
ous  size  and  form  and  rig — arks,  galleys,  gal 
leons,  sloops,  brigs,  boats  propelled  by  oars,  by 
sails,  by  steam.  I  saw  the  anxiety  with  which 
each  builder  launched  his  venture,  and  watched 
its  performance  and  progress.  The  anxiety 
was  to  invent  and  launch  something  that  should 
float  on  to  the  generations  to  come,  and  carry 


RELATION   OF    LITEEATUEE    TO    LIFE  5 

the  Dame  of  the  builder  and  the  fame  of  his 
generation.  It  was  almost  pathetic,  these 
puny  efforts,  because  faith  always  sprang 
afresh  in  the  success  of  each  new  venture. 
Many  of  the  vessels  could  scarcely  be  said  to 
be  launched  at  all ;  they  sank  like  lead,  close 
to  the  shore.  Others  floated  out  for  a  time, 
and  then,  struck  by  a  flaw  in  the  wind,  heeled 
over  and  disappeared.  Some,  not  well  put  to 
gether,  broke  into  fragments  in  the  buffeting 
of  the  waves.  Others  danced  on  the  flood, 
taking  the  sun  on  their  sails,  and  went  away 
with  good  promise  of  a  long  voyage.  But 
only  a  few  floated  for  any  length  of  time,  and 
still  fewer  were  ever  seen  by  the  generation 
succeeding  that  which  launched  them.  The 
shores  of  the  stream  were  strewn  with  wrecks ; 
there  lay  bleaching  in  the  sand  the  ribs  of 
many  a  once  gallant  craft. 

Innumerable  were  the  devices  of  the  build 
ers  to  keep  their  inventions  afloat.  Some  paid 
great  attention  to  the  form  of  the  hull,  others 
to  the  kind  of  cargo  and  the  loading  of  it, 
while  others — and  these  seemed  the  majority — 
trusted  more  to  some  new  sort  of  sail,  or  new 
fashion  of  rudder,  or  new  application  of  pr,o- 
pelling  power.  And  it  was  wonderful  to  see 
what  these  new  ingenuities  did  for  a  time,  and 


6  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

how  each  generation  was  deceived  into  the  be 
lief  that  its  products  would  sail  on  forever.  But 
one  fate  practically  came  to  the  most  of  them. 
They  were  too  heavy,  they  were  too  light, 
they  were  built  of  old  material,  and  they  went 
to  the  bottom,  they  went  ashore,  they  broke 
up  and  floated  in  fragments.  And  especially 
did  the  crafts  built  in  imitation  of  something 
that  had  floated  down  from  a  previous  gen 
eration  come  to  quick  disaster.  I  saw  only 
here  and  there  a  vessel,  beaten  by  weather  and 
blackened  by  time — so  old,  perhaps,  that  the 
name  of  the  maker  was  no  longer  legible ;  or 
some  fragments  of  antique  wood  that  had  ev 
idently  come  from  far  up  the  stream.  When 
such  a  vessel  appeared  there  was  sure  to  arise 
great  dispute  about  it,  and  from  time  to  time 
expeditions  were  organized  to  ascend  the  river 
and  discover  the  place  and  circumstances  of  its 
origin.  Along  the  banks,  at  intervals,  whole 
fleets  of  boats  and  fragments  had  gone  ashore, 
and  were  piled  up  in  bays,  like  the  drift-wood 
of  a  subsided  freshet.  Efforts  were  made  to 
dislodge  these  from  time  to  time  and  set 
them  afloat  again,  newly  christened,  with 
fresh  paint  and  sails,  as  if  they  stood  a  better 
chance  of  the  voyage  than  any  new  ones.  In 
deed,  I  saw  that  a  large  part  of  the  commerce 


RELATION    OF    LITEKATUEE   TO    LIFE  7 

of  this  river  was,  in  fact,  the  old  hulks  and 
stranded  wrecks  that  each  generation  had  set 
afloat  again.  As  I  saw  it  in  this  foolish  vis 
ion,  how  pathetic  this  labor  was  from  genera 
tion  to  generation  ;  so  many  vessels  launched  ; 
so  few  making  a  voyage  even  for  a  lifetime ; 
so  many  builders  confident  of  immortality; 
so  many  lives  outlasting  this  coveted  reputa 
tion!  And  still  the  generations,  each  with 
touching  hopefulness,  busied  themselves  with 
this  child's  play  on  the  banks  of  the  stream ; 
and  still  the  river  flowed  on,  whelming  and 
wrecking  the  most  of  that  so  confidently  com 
mitted  to  it,  and  bearing  only  here  and  there, 
on  its  swift,  wide  tide,  a  ship,  a  boat,  a  shin 
gle. 

These  hosts  of  men  whom  I  saw  thus  occu 
pied  since  history  began  were  authors  ;  these 
vessels  were  books ;  these  heaps  of  refuse  in 
the  bays  were  great  libraries.  The  allegory 
admits  of  any  amount  of  ingenious  parallel 
ism.  It  is  nevertheless  misleading ;  it  is  the 
illusion  of  an  idle  fancy.  I  have  introduced  it 
because  it  expresses,  with  some  whimsical  ex 
aggeration — not  much  more  than  that  of  "  The 
Vision  of  Mirza" — the  popular  notion  about 
literature  and  its  relation  to  human  life.  In 
the  popular  conception,  literature  is  as  much  a 


8  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

thing  apart  from  life  as  these  boats  on  the 
stream  of  time  were  from  the  existence,  the 
struggle,  the  decay  of  the  generations  along 
the  shore.  I  say  in  the  popular  conception, 
for  literature  is  wholly  different  from  this,  not 
only  in  its  effect  upon  individual  lives,  but 
upon  the  procession  of  lives  upon  this  earth ; 
it  is  not  only  an  integral  part  of  all  of  them, 
but,  with  its  sister  arts,  it  is  the  one  unceasing 
continuity  in  history.  Literature  and  art  are 
not  only  the  records  and  monuments  made  by 
the  successive  races  of  men,  not  only  the  local 
expressions  of  thought  and  emotion,  but  they 
are,  to  change  the  figure,  the  streams  that  flow 
on,  enduring,  amid  the  passing  show  of  men, 
reviving,  transforming,  ennobling  the  fleet 
ing  generations.  Without  this  continuity  of 
thought  and  emotion,  history  would  present 
us  only  a  succession  of  meaningless  experi 
ments.  The  experiments  fail,  the  experiments 
succeed — at  any  rate,  they  end — and  what  re 
mains  for  transmission,  for  the  sustenance  of 
succeeding  peoples  ?  Nothing  but  the  thought 
and  emotion  evolved  and  expressed.  It  is  true 
that  every  era,  each  generation,  seems  to  have 
its  peculiar  work  to  do ;  it  is  to  subdue  the  in 
tractable  earth,  to  repel  or  to  civilize  the  bar 
barians,  to  settle  society  in  order,  to  build  cities, 


KELATION    OF    LITEKATUKE    TO    LIFE  9 

to  amass  wealth  in  centres,  to  make  deserts 
bloom,  to  construct  edifices  such  as  were  never 
made  before,  to  bring  all  men  within  speaking 
distance  of  each  other — lucky  if  they  have 
anything  to  say  when  that  is  accomplished — 
to  extend  the  information  of  the  few  among 
the  many,  or  to  multiply  the  means  of  easy 
and  luxurious  living.  Age  after  age  the  world 
labors  for  these  things  with  the  busy  absorp 
tion  of  a  colony  of  ants  in  its  castle  of  sand. 
And  we  must  confess  that  the  process,  such, 
for  instance,  as  that  now  going  on  here — this 
onset  of  many  peoples,  which  is  transforming 
the  continent  of  America — is  a  spectacle  to  ex 
cite  the  imagination  in  the  highest  degree.  If 
there  were  any  poet  capable  of  putting  into 
an  epic  the  spirit  of  this  achievement,  what  an 
epic  would  be  his !  Can  it  be  that  there  is  any 
thing  of  more  consequence  in  life  than  the 
great  business  in  hand,  which  absorbs  the 
vitality  and  genius  of  this  age  ?  Surely,  we 
say,  it  is  better  to  go  by  steam  than  to  go 
afoot,  because  we  reach  our  destination  sooner 
—getting  there  quickly  being  a  supreme  ob 
ject.  It  is  well  to  force  the  soil  to  yield  a 
hundred-fold,  to  congregate  men  in  masses  so 
that  all  their  energies  shall  be  taxed  to  bring 
food  to  themselves,  to  stimulate  industries, 


10  RELATION    OF    LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

drag  coal  and  metal  from  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  cover  its  surface  with  rails  for  swift- 
running  carriages,  to  build  ever  larger  palaces, 
warehouses,  ships.  This  gigantic  achievement 
strikes  the  imagination. 

If  the  world  in  which  you  live  happens  to 
be  the  world  of  books,  if  your  pursuit  is  to 
know  what  has  been  done  and  said  in  the 
•world,  to  the  end  that  your  own  conception  of 
the  value  of  life  may  be  enlarged,  and  that 
better  things  may  be  done  and  said  hereafter, 
this  world  and  this  pursuit  assume  supreme  im 
portance  in  your  mind.  But  you  can  in  a  mo 
ment  place  yourself  in  relations — you  have  not 
to  go  far,  perhaps  only  to  speak  to  your  next 
neighbor — where  the  very  existence  of  your 
world  is  scarcely  recognized.  All  that  has 
seemed  to  you  of  supreme  importance  is  ig 
nored.  You  have  entered  a  world  that  is 
called  practical,  where  the  things  that  we  have 
been  speaking  of  are  done ;  you  have  interest 
in  it  and  sympathy  with  it,  because  your 
scheme  of  life  embraces  the  development  of 
ideas  into  actions ;  but  these  men  of  realities 
have  only  the  smallest  conception  of  the  world 
that  seems  to  you  of  the  highest  importance ; 
and,  further,  they  have  no  idea  that  they  owe 
anything  to  it,  that  it  has  ever  influenced  their 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE  11 

lives  or  can  add  anything  to  them.  And  it 
may  chance  that  you  have,  for  the  moment,  a 
sense  of  insignificance  in  the  small  part  you 
are  playing  in  the  drama  going  forward.  Go 
out  of  your  library,  out  of  the  small  circle  of 
people  who  talk  of  books,  who  are  engaged  in 
research,  whose  liveliest  interest  is  in  the  prog 
ress  of  ideas,  in  the  expression  of  thought  and 
emotion  that  is  in  literature ;  go  out  of  this  at 
mosphere  into  a  region  where  it  does  not  exist, 
it  may  be  into  a  place  given  up  to  commerce 
and  exchange,  or  to  manufacturing,  or  to  the 
development  of  certain  other  industries,  such 
as  mining,  or  the  pursuit  of  office — which  is 
sometimes  called  politics.  You  will  speedily 
be  aware  how  completely  apart  from  human 
life  literature  is  held  to  be,  how  few  people  re 
gard  it  seriously  as  a  necessary  element  in  life, 
as  anything  more  than  an  amusement  or  a 
vexation.  I  have  in  mind  a  mountain  district, 
stripped,  scarred,  and  blackened  by  the  ruth 
less  lumbermen,  ravished  of  its  forest  wealth, 
divested  of  its  beauty,  which  has  recently  be 
come  the  field  of  vast  coal-mining  operations. 
Kemote  from  communication,  it  was  yester 
day  an  exhausted,  wounded,  deserted  country. 
To-day  audacious  railways  are  entering  it, 
crawling  up  its  mountain  slopes,  rounding  its 


12  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

dizzy  precipices,  spanning  its  valleys  on  iron 
cobwebs,  piercing  its  hills  with  tunnels.  Drifts 
are  opened  in  its  coal  seams,  to  which  iron 
tracks  shoot  away  from  the  main  line ;  in  the 
woods  is  seen  the  gleam  of  the  engineer's 
level,  is  heard  the  rattle  of  heavily-laden 
wagons  on  the  newly-made  roads ;  tents  are 
pitched,  uncouth  shanties  have  sprung  up, 
great  stables,  boarding-houses,  stores,  work 
shops  ;  the  miner,  the  blacksmith,  the  mason, 
the  carpenter  have  arrived ;  households  have 
been  set  up  in  temporary  barracks,  children 
are  already  there  who  need  a  school,  women 
who  must  have  a  church  and  society ;  the 
stagnation  has  given  place  to  excitement, 
money  has  flowed  in,  and  everywhere  are  the 
hum  of  industry  and  the  swish  of  the  goad  of 
American  life.  On  this  hillside,  which  in  June 
was  covered  with  oaks,  is  already  in  October 
a  town ;  the  stately  trees  have  been  felled ; 
streets  are  laid  out  and  graded  and  named ; 
there  are  a  hundred  dwellings,  there  are  a  store, 
a  post-office,  an  inn ;  the  telegraph  has  reached 
it,  and  the  telephone  and  the  electric  light ;  in 
a  few  weeks  more  it  will  be  in  size  a  city,  with 
thousands  of  people — a  town  made  out  of  hand 
by  drawing  men  and  women  from  other  towns, 
civilized  men  and  women,  who  have  voluntarily 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE  13 

put  themselves  in  a  position  where  they  must 
be  civilized  over  again. 

This  is  a  marvellous  exhibition  of  what  ener 
gy  and  capital  can  do.  You  acknowledge  as 
much  to  the  creators  of  it.  You  remember 
that  not  far  back  in  history  such  a  transfor 
mation  as  this  could  not  have  been  wrought 
in  a  hundred  years.  This  is  really  life,  this  is 
doing  something  in  the  world,  and  in  the  pres 
ence  of  it  you  can  see  why  the  creators  of  it 
regard  your  world,  which  seemed  to  you  so  im 
portant,  the  world  whose  business  is  the  evolu 
tion  and  expression  of  thought  and  emotion,  as 
insignificant.  Here  is  a  material  addition  to 
the  business  and  wealth  of  the  race,  here  em 
ployment  for  men  who  need  it,  here  is  indus 
try  replacing  stagnation,  here  is  the  pleasure 
of  overcoming  difficulties  and  conquering  ob 
stacles.  Why  encounter  these  difficulties  ?  In 
order  that  more  coal  may  be  procured  to  op 
erate  more  railway  trains  at  higher  speed,  to 
supply  more  factories,  to  add  to  the  industrial 
stir  of  modern  life.  The  men  who  projected 
and  are  pushing  on  this  enterprise,  with  an  ex 
ecutive  ability  that  would  maintain  and  ma 
noeuvre  an  army  in  a  campaign,  are  not,  how 
ever,  consciously  philanthropists,  moved  by 
the  charitable  purpose  of  giving  employment 


14  RELATION   OF  LITERATURE  TO   LIFE 

to  men,  or  finding  satisfaction  in  making  two 
blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  before. 
They  enjoy  no  doubt  the  sense  of  power  in 
bringing  things  to  pass,  the  feeling  of  leader 
ship  and  the  consequence  derived  from  its  rec 
ognition  ;  but  they  embark  in  this  enterprise 
in  order  that  they  may  have  the  position  and 
the  luxury  that  increased  wealth  will  bring, 
the  object  being,  in  most  cases,  simply  material 
advantages :  sumptuous  houses,  furnished  with 
all  the  luxuries  which  are  the  signs  of  wealth, 
including,  of  course,  libraries  and  pictures  and 
statuary  and  curiosities,  the  most  showy  equi 
pages  and  troops  of  servants ;  the  object  be 
ing  that  their  wives  shall  dress  magnificently, 
glitter  in  diamonds  and  velvets,  and  never 
need  to  put  their  feet  to  the  ground ;  that  they 
may  command  the  best  stalls  in  the  church, 
the  best  pews  in  the  theatre,  the  choicest 
rooms  in  the  inn,  and  —  a  consideration  that 
Plato  does  not  mention,  because  his  world  was 
not  our  world — that  they  may  impress  and  re 
duce  to  obsequious  deference  the  hotel  clerk. 

This  life— for  this  enterprise  and  its  objects 
are  types  of  a  considerable  portion  of  life — 
is  not  without  its  ideal,  its  hero,  its  highest 
expression,  its  consummate  flower.  It  is  ex 
pressed  in  a  word  which  I  use  without  any 


RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  15 

sense  of  its  personality,  as  the  French  use  the 
word  Barnum — for  our  crude  young  nation 
has  the  distinction  of  adding  a  verb  to  the 
French  language,  the  verb  to  barnum — it  is 
expressed  in  the  well-known  name  Crcesus. 
This  is  a  standard — impossible  to  be  reached 
perhaps,  but  a  standard.  If  one  may  say  so, 
the  country  is  sown  with  seeds  of  Croasus,  and 
the  crop  is  forward  and  promising.  The  in 
terest  to  us  now  in  the  observation  of  this 
phase  of  modern  life  is  not  in  the  least  for 
purposes  of  satire  or  of  reform.  We  are  in 
quiring  how  wholly  this  conception  of  life  is 
divorced  from  the  desire  to  learn  what  has 
been  done  and  said  to  the  end  that  better 
things  may  be  done  and  said  hereafter,  in  order 
that  we  may  understand  the  popular  concep 
tion  of  the  insignificant  value  of  literature  in 
human  affairs.  But  it  is  not  aside  from  our 
subject,  rather  right  in  its  path,  to  take  heed 
of  what  the  philosophers  say  of  the  effect  in 
other  respects  of  the  pursuit  of  wealth. 

One  cause  of  the  decay  of  the  power  of  de 
fence  in  a  state,  says  the  Athenian  Stranger  in 
Plato's  Laws — one  cause  is  the  love  of  wealth, 
which  wholly  absorbs  men  and  never  for  a 
moment  allows  them  to  think  of  anything  but 
their  private  possessions ;  on  this  the  soul  of 


16  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

every  citizen  hangs  suspended,  and  can  attend 
to  nothing  but  his  daily  gain;  mankind  are 
ready  to  learn  any  branch  of  knowledge  and 
to  follow  any  pursuit  which  tends  to  this  end, 
and  they  laugh  at  any  other ;  that  is  the  rea 
son  why  a  city  will  not  be  in  earnest  about 
war  or  any  other  good  and  honorable  pursuit. 

The  accumulation  of  gold  in  the  treasury  of 
private  individuals,  says  Socrates,  in  the  Re 
public,  is  the  ruin  of  democracy.  They  in 
vent  illegal  modes  of  expenditure ;  and  what 
do  they  or  their  wives  care  about  the  law  ? 

"  And  then  one,  seeing  another's  display, 
proposes  to  rival  him,  and  thus  the  whole 
body  of  citizens  acquires  a  similar  character. 

"  After  that  they  get  on  in  a  trade,  and  the 
more  they  think  of  making  a  fortune,  the  less 
they  think  of  virtue ;  for  when  riches  and  virtue 
are  placed  together  in  the  balance,  the  one 
always  rises  as  the  other  falls. 

"  And  in  proportion  as  riches  and  rich  men 
are  honored  in  the  state,  virtue  and  the  virtu 
ous  are  dishonored. 

"And  what  is  honored  is  cultivated,  and 
that  which  has  no  honor  is  neglected. 

"  And  so  at  last,  instead  of  loving  contention 
and  glory,  men  become  lovers  of  trade  and 
money,  and  they  honor  and  reverence  the  rich 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE  17 

man  and  make  a  ruler  of  him,  and  dishonor 
the  poor  man. 

"  They  do  so." 

The  object  of  a  reasonable  statesman  (it  is 
Plato  who  is  realty  speaking  in  the  Laics)  is 
not  that  the  state  should  be  as  great  and  rich 
as  possible,  should  possess  gold  and  silver,  and 
have  the  greatest  empire  by  sea  and  land. 

The  citizen  must,  indeed,  be  happy  and  good, 
and  the  legislator  will  seek  to  make  him  so ; 
but  very  rich  and  very  good  at  the  same  time 
he  cannot  be ;  not  at  least  in  the  sense  in  which 
many  speak  of  riches.  For  they  describe  by 
the  term  "  rich  "  the  few  who  have  the  most 
valuable  possessions,  though  the  owner  of  them 
be  a  rogue.  And  if  this  is  true,  I  can  never 
assent  to  the  doctrine  that  the  rich  man  will  be 
happy :  he  must  be  good  as  well  as  rich.  And 
good  in  a  high  degree  and  rich  in  a  high  degree 
at  the  same  time  he  cannot  be.  Some  one  will 
ask,  Why  not  ?  And  we  shall  answer,  Because 
acquisitions  which  come  from  sources  which 
are  just  and  unjust  indifferently  are  more  than 
double  those  which  come  from  just  sources 
only;  and  the  sums  which  are  expended  neither 
honorably  nor  disgracefully  are  only  half  as 
great  as  those  which  are  expended  honorably 
and  on  honorable  purposes.  Thus  if  one  ac- 


18  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

quires  double  and  spends  half,  the  other,  who 
is  in  the  opposite  case  and  is  a  good  man,  can 
not  possibly  be  wealthier  than  he.  The  first 
(I  am  speaking  of  the  saver,  and  not  of  the 
spender)  is  not  always  bad ;  he  may  indeed 
in  some  cases  be  utterly  bad,  but  as  I  was  say 
ing,  a  good  man  he  never  is.  For  he  who  re 
ceives  money  unjustly  as  well  as  justly,  and 
spends  neither  justly  nor  unjustly,  will  be  a 
rich  man  if  he  be  also  thrifty.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  utterly  bad  man  is  generally  profli 
gate,  and  therefore  poor ;  while  he  who  spends 
on  noble  objects,  and  acquires  wealth  by  just 
means  only,  can  hardly  be  remarkable  for 
riches  any  more  than  he  can  be  very  poor. 
The  argument,  then,  is  right  in  declaring  that 
the  very  rich  are  not  good,  and  if  they  are  not 
good  they  are  not  happy. 

And  the  conclusion  of  Plato  is  that  we  ought 
not  to  pursue  any  occupation  to  the  neglect  of 
that  for  which  riches  exist — "  I  mean,"  he  says, 
"  soul  and  body,  which  without  gymnastics  and 
without  education  will'  never  be  worth  any 
thing  ;  and  therefore,  as  we  have  said  not  once 
but  many  times,  the  care  of  riches  should  have 
the  last  place  in  our  thoughts." 

Men  cannot  be  happy  unless  they  are  good, 
and  they  cannot  be  good  unless  the  care  of 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE  19 

the  soul  occupies  the  first  place  in  their 
thoughts.  That  is  the  first  interest  of  man ; 
the  interest  in  the  body  is  midway ;  and  last 
of  all,  when  rightly  regarded,  is  the  interest 
about  money. 

The  majority  of  mankind  reverses  this  order 
of  interests,  and  therefore  it  sets  literature  to 
pne  side  as  of  no  practical  account  in  human 
life.  More  than  this,  it  not  only  drops  it  out 
of  mind,  but  it  has  no  conception  of  its  influ 
ence  and  power  in  the  very  affairs  from  which 
it  seems  to  be  excluded.  It  is  my  purpose  to 
show  not  only  the  close  relation  of  literature 
to  ordinary  life,  but  its  eminent  position  in 
life,  and  its  saving  power  in  lives  which  do  not 
suspect  its  influence  or  value.  Just  as  it  is 
virtue  that  saves  the  state,  if  it  be  saved,  al 
though  the  majority  do  not  recognize  it  and 
attribute  the  salvation  of  the  state  to  energy, 
and  to  obedience  to  the  laws  of  political  econo 
my,  and  to  discoveries  in  science,  and  to  finan 
cial  contrivances ;  so  it  is  that  in  the  life  of 
generations  of  men,  considered  from  an  ethical 
and  not  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  the 
most  potent  and  lasting  influence  for  a  civiliza 
tion  that  is  worth  anything,  a  civilization  that 
does  not  by  its  own  nature  work  its  decay,  is 
that  which  I  call  literature. 


20  RELATION   OF   LITERATUKE  TO   LIFE 

It  is  time  to  define  what  we  mean  by  litera 
ture.     We  may  arrive  at  the  meaning  by  the 
definition  of  exclusion.    We  do  not  mean  all 
books,  but  some  books ;  not  all  that  is  written 
and  published,  but  only  a  small  part  of  it.    We 
do  not  mean  books  of  law,  of  theology,  of  pol 
itics,  of  science,  of  medicine,  and  not  neces 
sarily  books  of  travel,  or  adventure,  or  biog 
raphy,   or  fiction   even.    These   may  all  be 
ephemeral  in  their  nature.     The  term  'belles- 
lettres  does  not  fully  express  it,  for  it  is  too 
narrow.     In  books  of  law,  theology,  politics, 
medicine,  science,  travel,  adventure,  biography, 
philosophy,  and  fiction  there  may  be  passages 
that  possess,  or  the  whole  contents  may  pos 
sess,   that  quality  which  comes  within   our 
meaning  of  literature.     It   must  have  in  it 
something  of  the  enduring  and  the  universal. 
When  we  use  the  term,  art,  we  do  not  mean  the 
arts  ;  we  are  indicating  a  quality  that  may  be 
in  any  of  the  arts.     In  art  and  literature  we 
require  not  only  an  expression  of  the  facts  in 
nature   and   in  human   life,   but   of   feeling, 
thought,  emotion.     There  must  be  an  appeal 
to  the  universal  in  the  race.    It  is,  for  exam 
ple,  impossible  for  a  Christian  to-day  to  under 
stand  what  the  religious  system  of  the  Egyp 
tians  of  three  thousand  years  ago  was  to  the 


RELATION    OF    LITER ATUEE   TO    LIFE  21 

Egyptian  mind,  or  to  grasp  the  idea  conveyed 
to  a  Chinaman's  thought  in  the  phrase,  "  the 
worship  of  the  principle  of  heaven";  but  the 
Christian  of  to-day  comprehends  perfectly  the 
letters  of  an  Egyptian  scribe  in  the  time  of 
Thotmes  III.,  who  described  the  comical  mis 
eries  of  his  campaign  with  as  clear  an  appeal 
to  universal  human  nature  as  Horace  used  in 
his  Iter  Brundusium;  and  the  maxims  of 
Confucius  are  as  comprehensible  as  the  bitter- 
sweetness  of  Thomas  a  Kempis.  De  Quincey 
distinguishes  between  the  literature  of  knowl 
edge  and  the  literature  of  power.  The  defini 
tion  is  not  exact ;  but  we  may  say  that  the  one 
is  a  statement  of  what  is  known,  the  other  is 
an  emanation  from  the  man  himself ;  or  that 
one  may  add  to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge, 
and  the  other  addresses  itself  to  a  higher  want 
in  human  nature  than  the  want  of  knowledge. 
We  select  and  set  aside  as  literature  that  which 
is  original,  the  product  of  what  we  call  genius. 
As  I  have  said,  the  subject  of  a  production  does 
not  always  determine  the  desired  quality  which 
makes  it  literature.  A  biography  may  con 
tain  all  the  facts  in  regard  to  a  man  and  his 
character,  arranged  in  an  orderly  and  compre 
hensible  manner,  and  yet  not  be  literature ;  but 
it  may  be  so  written,  like  Plutarch's  Lives  or 


22  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE  TO   LIFE 

Defoe's  account  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  that  it 
is  literature,  and  of  imperishable  value  as  a 
picture  of  human  life,  as  a  satisfaction  to  the 
want  of  the  human  mind  which  is  higher  than 
the  want  of  knowledge.  And  this  contribu 
tion,  which  I  desire  to  be  understood  to  mean 
when  I  speak  of  literature,  is  precisely  the 
thing  of  most  value  in  the  lives  of  the  major 
ity  of  men,  whether  they  are  aware  of  it  or 
not.  It  may  be  weighty  and  profound ;  it  may 
be  light,  as  light  as  the  fall  of  a  leaf  or  a  bird's 
song  on  the  shore ;  it  may  be  the  thought  of 
Plato  when  he  discourses  of  the  character  nec 
essary  in  a  perfect  state,  or  of  Socrates,  who, 
out  of  the  theorem  of  an  absolute  beauty, 
goodness,  greatness,  and  the  like,  deduces  the 
immortality  of  the  soul ;  or  it  may  be  the  love- 
song  of  a  Scotch  ploughman :  but  it  has  this 
one  quality  of  answering  to  a  need  in  human 
nature  higher  than  a  need  for  facts,  for  knowl 
edge,  for  wealth. 

In  noticing  the  remoteness  in  the  popular 
conception  of  the  relation  of  literature  to  life, 
we  must  not  neglect  to  take  into  account  what 
may  be  called  the  arrogance  of  culture,  an  ar 
rogance  that  has  been  emphasized,  in  these 
days  of  reaction  from  the  old  attitude  of  liter 
ary  obsequiousness,  by  harsh  distinctions  and 


RELATION   OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE  23 

hard  words,  which  are  paid  back  by  equally 
emphasized  contempt.  The  apostles  of  light 
regard  the  rest  of  mankind  as  barbarians  and 
Philistines,  and  the  world  retorts  that  these 
self -constituted  apostles  are  idle  word -mon 
gers,  without  any  sympathy  with  humanity, 
critics  and  jeerers  who  do  nothing  to  make  the 
conditions  of  life  easier.  It  is  natural  that 
every  man  should  magnify  the  circle  of  the 
world  in  which  he  is  active  and  imagine  that 
all  outside  of  it  is  comparatively  unimportant. 
Everybody  who  is  not  a  drone  has  his  sufficient 
world.  To  the  lawyer  it  is  his  cases  and  the 
body  of  law,  it  is  the  legal  relation  of  men  that 
is  of  supreme  importance ;  to  the  merchant  and 
manufacturer  all  the  world  consists  in  buying 
and  selling,  in  the  production  and  exchange  of 
products ;  to  the  physician  all  the  world  is  dis 
eased  and  in  need  of  remedies ;  to  the  clergy 
man  speculation  and  the  discussion  of  dogmas 
and  historical  theology  assume  immense  im 
portance  ;  the  politician  has  his  world,  the  art 
ist  his  also,  and  the  man  of  books  and  letters  a 
realm  still  apart  from  all  others.  And  to  each 
of  these  persons  what  is  outside  of  his  world 
seems  of  secondary  importance ;  he  is  absorbed 
in  his  own,  which  seems  to  him  all-embracing. 
To  the  lawyer  everybody  is  or  ought  to  be  a 


24  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUBE   TO    LIFE 

litigant ;  to  the  grocer  the  world  is  that  which 
eats,  and  pays — with  more  or  less  regularity ; 
to  the  scholar  the  world  is  in  books  and  ideas. 
One  realizes  how  possessed  he  is  with  his  own 
little  world  only  when  by  chance  he  changes 
his  profession  or  occupation  and  looks  back 
upon  the  law,  or  politics,  or  journalism,  and 
sees  in  its  true  proportion  what  it  was  that 
once  absorbed  him  and  seemed  to  him  so  large. 
When  Socrates  discusses  with  Gorgias  the 
value  of  rhetoric,  the  use  of  which,  the  latter 
asserts,  relates  to  the  greatest  and  best  of  hu 
man  things,  Socrates  says:  I  dare  say  you 
have  heard  men  singing  at  feasts  the  old 
drinking-song,  in  which  the  singers  enumerate 
the  goods  of  life — first,  health ;  beauty  next ; 
thirdly,  wealth  honestly  acquired.  The  pro 
ducers  of  these  things  —  the  physician,  the 
trainer,  the  money-maker  —  each  in  turn  con 
tends  that  his  art  produces  the  greatest  good. 
Surely,  says  the  physician,  health  is  the  great 
est  good;  there  is  more  good  in  my  art,  says 
the  trainer,  for  my  business  is  to  make  men 
beautiful  and  strong  in  body;  and  consider, 
says  the  money-maker,  whether  any  one  can 
produce  a  greater  good  than  wealth.  But,  in 
sists  Gorgias,  the  greatest  good  of  men,  of 
which  I  am  the  creator,  is  that  which  gives 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  25 

men  freedom  in  their  persons,  and  the  power 
of  ruling  over  others  in  their  several  states — 
that  is,  the  word  which  persuades  the  judge 
in  the  court,  or  the  senators  in  the  council,  or 
the  citizens  in  the  assembly:  if  you  have  the 
power  of  uttering  this  word,  you  will  have  the 
physician  your  slave,  and  the  trainer  your 
slave,  and  the  money  -  maker  of  whom  you 
talk  will  be  found  to  gather  treasures,  not  for 
himself,  but  for  those  who  are  able  to  speak 
and  persuade  the  multitude. 

What  we  call  life  is  divided  into  occupations 
and  interests,  and  the  horizons  of  mankind 
are  bounded  by  them.  It  happens  naturally 
enough,  therefore,  that  there  should  be  a  want 
of  sympathy  in  regard  to  these  pursuits  among 
men,  the  politician  despising  the  scholar,  and 
the  scholar  looking  down  upon  the  politician, 
and  the  man  of  affairs,  the  man  of  industries, 
not  caring  to  conceal  his  contempt  for  both 
the  others.  And  still  more  reasonable  does 
the  division  appear  between  all  the  world 
which  is  devoted  to  material  life,  and  the  few 
who  live  in  and  for  the  expression  of  thought 
and  emotion.  It  is  a  pity  that  this  should  be 
so,  for  it  can  be  shown  that  life  would  not  be 
worth  living  divorced  from  the  gracious  and 
ennobling  influence  of  literature,  and  that 


26  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

literature  suffers  atrophy  when  it  does  not 
concern  itself  with  the  facts  and  feelings  of 
men. 

If  the  poet  lives  in  a  world  apart  from  the 
vulgar,  the  most  lenient  apprehension  of  him 
is  that  his  is  a  sort  of  fool's  paradise.  One 
of  the  most  curious  features  in  the  relation  of 
literature  to  life  is  this,  that  while  poetry,  the 
production  of  the  poet,  is  as  necessary  to  uni 
versal  man  as  the  atmosphere,  and  as  accept 
able,  the  poet  is  regarded  with  that  mingling 
of  compassion  and  undervaluation,  and  per 
haps  awe,  which  once  attached  to  the  weak- 
minded  and  insane,  and  which  is  sometimes  ex 
pressed  by  the  term  "  inspired  idiot."  How 
ever  the  poet  may  have  been  petted  and 
crowned,  however  his  name  may  have  been 
diffused  among  peoples,  I  doubt  not  that  the 
popular  estimate  of  him  has  always  been  sub 
stantially  what  it  is  to-day.  And  we  all  know 
that  it  is  true,  true  in  our  individual  conscious 
ness,  that  if  a  man  be  known  as  a  poet  and 
nothing  else,  if  his  character  is  sustained  by 
no  other  achievement  than  the  production  of 
poetry,  he  suffers  in  our  opinion  a  loss  of  re 
spect.  And  this  is  only  recovered  for  him 
after  he  is  dead,  and  his  poetry  is  left  alone  to 
speak  for  his  name.  However  fond  my  lord 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  27 

and  lady  were  of  the  ballad,  the  place  of  the 
minstrel  was  at  the  lower  end  of  the  hall.  If 
we  are  pushed  to  say  why  this  is,  why  this 
happens  to  the  poet  and  not  to  the  producers 
of  anything  else  that  excites  the  admiration  of 
mankind,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  there  is 
something  in  the  poet  to  sustain  the  popular 
judgment  of  his  inutility.  In  all  the  occupa 
tions  and  professions  of  life  there  is  a  sign  put 
up,  invisible  but  none  the  less  real,  and  ex 
pressing  an  almost  universal  feeling — "No  poet 
need  apply."  And  this  is  not  because  there 
are  so  many  poor  poets;  for  there  are  poor 
lawyers,  poor  soldiers,  poor  statesmen,  incom 
petent  business  men ;  but  none  of  the  personal 
disparagement  attaches  to  them  that  is  affixed 
to  the  poet.  This  popular  estimate  of  the  poet 
extends  also,  possibly  in  less  degree,  to  all  the 
producers  of  the  literature  that  does  not  con 
cern  itself  with  knowledge.  It  is  not  our  care 
to  inquire  further  why  this  is  so,  but  to  repeat 
that  it  is  strange  that  it  should  be  so  when 
poetry  is,  and  has  been  at  all  times,  the  uni 
versal  solace  of  all  peoples  who  have  emerged 
out  of  barbarism,  the  one  thing  not  super 
natural  and  yet  akin  to  the  supernatural,  that 
makes  the  world,  in  its  hard  and  sordid  condi 
tions,  tolerable  to  the  race.  For  poetry  is  not 


28  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE    TO   LIFE 

merely  the  comfort  of  the  refined  and  the  de 
light  of  the  educated ;  it  is  the  alleviator  of 
poverty,  the  pleasure-ground  of  the  ignorant, 
the  bright  spot  in  the  most  dreary  pilgrimage. 
We  cannot  conceive  the  abject  animal  condi 
tion  of  our  race  were  poetry  abstracted;  and 
we  do  not  wonder  that  this  should  be  so 
when  we  reflect  that  it  supplies  a  want  higher 
than  the  need  for  food,  for  raiment,  or  ease  of 
living,  and  that  the  mind  needs  support  as 
much  as  the  body.  The  majority  of  mankind 
live  largely  in  the  imagination,  the  office  or 
use  of  which  is  to  lift  them  in  spirit  out  of  the 
bare  physical  conditions  in  which  the  majority 
exist.  There  are  races,  which  we  may  call  the 
poetical  races,  in  which  this  is  strikingly  ex 
emplified.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  pov 
erty  more  complete,  physical  wants  less  grati 
fied,  the  conditions  of  life  more  bare  than 
among  the  Oriental  peoples  from  the  Nile  to 
the  Ganges  and  from  the  Indian  Ocean  to  the 
steppes  of  Siberia.  But  there  are  perhaps 
none  among  the  more  favored  races  who  live 
so  much  in  the  world  of  imagination  fed  by 
poetry  and  romance.  Watch  the  throng  seat 
ed  about  an  Arab  or  Indian  or  Persian  story 
teller  and  poet,  men  and  women  with  all  the 
marks  of  want,  hungry,  almost  naked,  with- 


RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  29 

out  any  prospect  in  life  of  ever  bettering  their 
sordid  condition ;  see  their  eyes  kindle,  their 
breathing  suspended,  their  tense  absorption ; 
see  their  tears,  hear  their  laughter,  note  their 
excitement  as  the  magician  unfolds  to  them  a 
realm  of  the  imagination  in  which  they  are 
free  for  the  hour  to  wander,  tasting  a  keen 
and  deep  enjoyment  that  all  the  wealth  of 
Croesus  cannot  purchase  for  his  disciples. 
Measure,  if  you  can,  what  poetry  is  to  them, 
what  their  lives  would  be  without  it.  To  the 
millions  and  millions  of  men  who  are  in  this 
condition,  the  bard,  the  story-teller,  the  cre 
ator  of  what  we  are  considering  as  literature, 
comes  with  the  one  thing  that  can  lift  them 
out  of  poverty,  suffering — all  the  woe  of  which 
nature  is  so  heedless. 

It  is  not  alone  of  the  poetical  nations  of 
the  East  that  this  is  true,  nor  is  this  desire 
for  the  higher  enjoyment  always  wanting  in 
the  savage  tribes  of  the  West.  When  the 
Jesuit  Fathers  in  1768  landed  upon  the  almost 
untouched  and  unexplored  southern  Pacific 
coast,  they  found  in  the  San  Gabriel  Valley 
in  Lower  California  that  the  Indians  had 
games  and  feasts  at  which  they  decked  them 
selves  in  flower  garlands  that  reached  to  their 
feet,  and  that  at  these  games  there  were  song 


30  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

contests  which  sometimes  lasted  for  three 
days.  This  contest  of  the  poets  was  an  old 
custom  with  them.  And  we  remember  how 
the  ignorant  Icelanders,  who  had  never  seen  a 
written  character,  created  the  splendid  Saga, 
and  handed  it  down  from  father  to  son.  We 
shall  scarcely  find  in  Europe  a  peasantry  whose 
abject  poverty  is  not  in  some  measure  alle 
viated  by  this  power  which  literature  gives 
them  to  live  outside  it.  Through  our  sacred 
Scriptures,  through  the  ancient  story-tellers, 
through  the  tradition  which  in  literature  made, 
as  I  said,  the  chief  continuity  in  the  stream  of 
time,  we  all  live  a  considerable,  perhaps  the 
better,  portion  of  our  lives  in  the  Orient.  But 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  Scotch  peasant,  the 
crofter  in  his  Highland  cabin,  the  operative 
in  his  squalid  tenement-house,  in  the  hopeless 
ness  of  poverty,  in  the  grime  of  a  life  made 
twice  as  hard  as  that  of  the  Arab  by  an  inim 
ical  climate,  does  not  owe  more  to  literature 
than  the  man  of  culture,  whose  material  sur 
roundings  are  heaven  in  the  imagination  of 
the  poor.  Think  what  his  wretched  life  would 
be,  in  its  naked  deformity,  without  the  popu 
lar  ballads,  without  the  romances  of  Scott, 
which  have  invested  his  land  for  him,  as  for 
us,  with  enduring  charm ;  and  especially  with- 


Vv 

EELATION    OF  LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  31 

out  the  songs  of  Burns,  which  keep  alive  in 
him  the  feeling  that  he  is  a  man,  which  im 
part  to  his  blunted  sensibility  the  delicious 
throb  of  spring  —  songs  that  enable  him  to 
hear  the  birds,  to  see  the  bits  of  blue  sky- 
songs  that  make  him  tender  of  the  wee  bit 
daisy  at  his  feet — songs  that  hearten  him  when 
his  heart  is  fit  to  break  with  misery.  Perhaps 
the  English  peasant,  the  English  operative,  is 
less  susceptible  to  such  influences  than  the 
Scotch  or  the  Irish ;  but  over  him,  sordid  as 
his  conditions  are,  close  kin  as  he  is  to  the 
clod,  the  light  of  poetry  is  diffused ;  there  fil 
ters  into  his  life,  also,  something  of  that  divine 
stream  of  which  we  have  spoken,  a  dialect 
poem  that  touches  him,  the  leaf  of  a  psalm, 
some  bit  of  imagination,  some  tale  of  pathos, 
set  afloat  by  a  poor  writer  so  long  ago  that  it 
has  become  the  common  stock  of  human  tra 
dition—maybe  from  Palestine,  maybe  from 
the  Ganges,  perhaps  from  Athens — some  ex 
pression  of  real  emotion,  some  creation,  we 
say,  that  makes  for  him  a  world,  vague  and 
dimly  apprehended,  that  is  not  at  all  the  act 
ual  world  in  which  he  sins  and  suffers.  The 
poor  woman,  in  a  hut  with  an  earth  floor,  a 
reeking  roof,  a  smoky  chimney,  barren  of  com 
fort,  so  indecent  that  a  gentleman  would  not 


32  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

stable  his  horse  in  it,  sits  and  sews  upon  a 
coarse  garment,  while  she  rocks  the  cradle  of 
an  infant  about  whom  she  cherishes  no  illu 
sions  that  his  lot  will  be  other  than  that  of 
his  father  before  him.  As  she  sits  forlorn,  it 
is  not  the  wretched  hovel  that  she  sees,  nor 
other  hovels  like  it  —  rows  of  tenements  of 
hopeless  poverty,  the  ale-house,  the  gin-shop, 
the  coal-pit,  and  the  choking  factory — but 

"Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling  flood 
Stand  dressed  in  living  green" 

for  her,  thanks  to  the  poet.  But,  alas  for  the 
poet !  there  is  not  a  peasant  nor  a  wretched 
operative  of  them  all  who  will  not  shake  his 
head  and  tap  his  forehead  with  his  forefinger 
when  the  poor  poet  chap  passes  by.  The 
peasant  has  the  same  opinion  of  him  that  the 
physician,  the  trainer,  and  the  money-lender 
had  of  the  rhetorician. 

The  hard  conditions  of  the  lonely  New  Eng 
land  life,  with  its  religious  theories  as  sombre 
as  its  forests,  its  rigid  notions  of  duty  as  diffi 
cult  to  make  bloom  into  sweetness  and  beauty 
as  the  stony  soil,  would  have  been  unendura 
ble  if  they  had  not  been  touched  with  the  ideal 
created  by  the  poet.  There  was  in  creed  and 
purpose  the  virility  that  creates  a  state,  and, 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  33 

as  Menander  says,  the  country  which  is  cul-j 
tivated  with  difficulty  produces  brave  men ;! 
but  we  leave  out  an  important  element  in  the 
lives  of  the  Pilgrims  if  we  overlook  the  means 
they  had  of  living  above  their  barren  circum 
stances.  I  do  not  speak  only  of  the  culture 
which  many  of  them  brought  from  the  univer 
sities,  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics,  and 
what  unworldly  literature  they  could  glean 
from  the  productive  age  of  Elizabeth  and 
James,  but  of  another  source,  more  univer 
sally  resorted  to,  and  more  powerful  in  ex 
citing  imagination  and  emotion,  and  iilling 
the  want  in  human  nature  of  which  we  have 
spoken.  They  had  the  Bible,  and  it  was  more 
to  them,  much  more,  than  a  book  of  religion, 
than  a  revelation  of  religious  truth,  a  rule  for 
the  conduct  of  life,  or  a  guide  to  heaven.  It 
supplied  the  place  to  them  of  the  Mahabbarata 
to  the  Hindoo,  of  the  story-teller  to  the  Arab. 
It  opened  to  them  a  boundless  realm  of  poetry 
and  imagination. 

"What  is  the  Bible  ?  It  might  have  sufficed, 
accepted  as  a  book  of  revelation,  for  all  the 
purposes  of  moral  guidance,  spiritual  consola 
tion,  and  systematized  authority,  if  it  had  been 
a  collection  of  precepts,  a  dry  code  of  morals, 
an  arsenal  of  judgments,  and  a  treasury  of 


34  RELATION   OF    LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

promises.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
Pilgrims  as  training  their  intellectual  facul 
ties  in  the  knottiest  problems  of  human  re 
sponsibility  and  destiny,  toughening  their 
mental  fibre  in  wrestling  with  dogmas  and 
the  decrees  of  Providence,  forgetting  what 
else  they  drew  out  of  the  Bible :  what  else  it 
was  to  them  in  a  degree  it  has  been  to  few 
peoples  in  any  age.  For  the  Bible  is  the  un 
equalled  record  of  thought  and  emotion,  the 
reservoir  of  poetry,  traditions,  stories,  para- 

^bles,  exaltations,  consolations,  great  imagina 
tive  adventure,  for  which  the  spirit  of  man  is 
always  longing.  It  might  have  been,  in  warn 
ing  examples  and  commands,  all-sufficient  to 
enable  men  to  make  a  decent  pilgrimage  on 
earth  and  reach  a  better  country ;  but  it  would 
have  been  a  very  different  book  to  mankind 
if  it  had  been  only  a  volume  of  statutes,  and 

\  if  it  lacked  its  wonderful  literary  quality.  It 
might  have  enabled  men  to  reach  a  better 
country,  but  not,  while  on  earth,  to  rise  into 

,  and  live  in  that  better  country,  or  to  live  in  a 
region  above  the  sordidness  of  actual  life. 
For,  apart  from  its  religious  intention  and  sa 
cred  character,  the  book  is  so  written  that  it 
has  supremely  in  its  history,  poetry,  prophe 
cies,  promises,  stories,  that  clear  literary  qual- 


RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  35 

ity  that  supplies,  as  certainly  no  other  single 
book  does,  the  want  in  the  human  mind  which 
is  higher  than  the  want  of  facts  or  knowledge. 

i  The  Bible  is  the  best  illustration  of  the  lit 
erature  of  power,  for  it  always  concerns  itself 

l  with  life,  it  touches  it  at  all  points.  And  this  is 
the  test  of  any  piece  of  literature— its  universal 
appeal  to  human  nature.  When  I  consider  the 
narrow  limitations  of  the  Pilgrim  households, 
the  absence  of  luxury,  the  presence  of  danger 
and  hardship,  the  harsh  laws — only  less  severe 
than  the  contemporary  laws  of  England  and 
Virginia — the  weary  drudgery,  the  few  pleas 
ures,  the  curb  upon  the  expression  of  emotion 
and  of  tenderness,  the  ascetic  repression  of 
worldly  thought,  the  absence  of  poetry  in  the 
routine  occupations  and  conditions,  I  can  feel 
what  the  Bible  must  have  been  to  them.  It  was 
an  open  door  into  a  world  where  emotion  is  ex 
pressed,  where  imagination  can  range,  where 
love  and  longing  find  a  language,  where  im 
agery  is  given  to  every  noble  and  suppressed 
passion  of  the  soul,  where  every  aspiration 
finds  wings.  It  was  history,  or,  as  Thucyd- 
ides  said,  philosophy  teaching  by  example ;  it 
was  the  romance  of  real  life ;  it  was  entertain 
ment  unfailing ;  the  wonder-book  of  childhood, 
the  volume  of  sweet  sentiment  to  the  shy 


36  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

maiden,  the  sword  to  the  soldier,  the  inciter 
of  the  youth  to  heroic  enduring  of  hardness, 
it  was  the  refuge  of  the  aged  in  failing  activity. 
Perhaps  we  can  nowhere  find  a  better  illus 
tration  of  the  true  relation  of  literature  to  life 
ithan  in  this  example. 

Let  us  consider  the  comparative  value  of  lit 
erature  to  mankind.  By  comparative  value  I 
mean  its  worth  to  men  in  comparison  with 
other  things  of  acknowledged  importance,  such 
as  the  creation  of  industries,  the  government 
of  states,  the  manipulation  of  the  politics  of 
an  age,  the  achievements  in  war  and  discovery, 
and  the  lives  of  admirable  men.  It  needs  a 
certain  perspective  to  judge  of  this  aright,  for 
the  near  and  the  immediate  always  assume  im 
portance.  The  work  that  an  age  has  on  hand, 
whether  it  be  discovery,  conquest,  the  wars 
that  determine  boundaries  or  are  fought  for 
policies,  the  industries  that  develop  a  country 
or  affect  the  character  of  a  people,  the  wield 
ing  of  power,  the  accumulation  of  fortunes,  the 
various  activities  of  any  given  civilization  or 
period,  assume  such  enormous  proportions  to 
those  engaged  in  them  that  such  a  modest 
thing  as  the  literary  product  seems  insignifi 
cant  in  comparison ;  and  hence  it  is  that  the 
man  of  action  always  holds  in  slight  esteem 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  37 

the  man  of  thought,  and  especially  the  ex- 
presser  of  feeling  and  emotion,  the  poet  and 
the  humorist.  It  is  only  when  we  look  back 
over  the  ages,  when  civilizations  have  passed 
or  changed,  over  the  rivalries  of  states,  the 
ambitions  and  enmities  of  men,  the  shining 
deeds  and  the  base  deeds  that  make  up  history, 
that  we  are  enabled  to  see  what  remains,  what 
is  permanent.  Perhaps  the  chief  result  left  to 
the  world  out  of  a  period  of  heroic  exertion,  of 
passion  and  struggle  and  accumulation,  is  a 
sheaf  of  poems,  or  the  record  by  a  man  of  let 
ters  of  some  admirable  character.  Spain  filled 
a  large  place  in  the  world  in  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  and  its  influence  upon  history  is  by  no 
means  spent  yet ;  but  we  have  inherited  out  of 
that  period  nothing,  I  dare  say,  that  is  of  more 
value  than  the  romance  of  Don  Quixote.  It  is 
true  that  the  best  heritage  of  generation  from 
generation  is  the  character  of  great  men ;  but 
we  always  owe  its  transmission  to  the  poet  and 
the  writer.  Without  Plato  there  would  be  no 
Socrates.  There  is  no  influence  comparable  in 
human  life  to  the  personality  of  a  powerful 
man,  so  long  as  he  is  present  to  his  generation, 
or  lives  in  the  memory  of  those  who  felt  his 
influence.  But  after  time  has  passed,  will  the 
world,  will  human  life,  that  is  essentiallv  the 


38  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

same  in  all  changing  conditions,  be  more  af 
fected  by  what  Bismarck  did  or  by  what  Goethe 
said  ? 

We  may  without  impropriety  take  for  an 
illustration  of  the  comparative  value  of  liter 
ature  to  human  needs  the  career  of  a  man  now 
living.  In  the  opinion  of  many,  Mr.  Glad 
stone  is  the  greatest  Englishman  of  this  age. 
"What  would  be  the  position  of  the  British  em 
pire,  what  would  be  the  tendency  of  English 
politics  and  society  without  him,  is  a  matter 
for  speculation.  He  has  not  played  such  a 
role  for  England  and  its  neighbors  as  Bismarck 
has  played  for  Germany  and  the  Continent,  but 
he  has  been  one  of  the  most  powerful  influ 
ences  in  moulding  English  action.  He  is  the 
foremost  teacher.  Earely  in  history  has  a 
nation  depended  more  upon  a  single  man,  at 
times,  than  the  English  upon  Gladstone,  upon 
his  will,  his  ability,  and  especially  his  char 
acter.  In  certain  recent  crises  the  thought  of 
losing  him  produced  something  like  a  panic  in 
the  English  mind,  justifying  in  regard  to  him 
the  hyperbole  of  Choate  upon  the  death  of 
Webster,  that  the  sailor  on  the  distant  sea 
would  feel  less  safe — as  if  a  protecting  provi 
dence  had  been  withdrawn  from  the  world. 
His  mastery  of  finance  and  of  economic  prob- 


RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE  39 

lems,  his  skill  in  debate,  his  marvellous  achieve 
ments  in  oratory,  have  extorted  the  admiration 
of  his  enemies.  There  is  scarcely  a  province 
in  government,  letters,  art,  or  research  in  which 
the  mind  can  win  triumphs  that  he  has  not 
invaded  and  displayed  his  power  in ;  scarcely 
a  question  in  politics,  reform,  letters,  religion, 
archeology,  sociology,  which  he  has  not  dis 
cussed  with  ability.  He  is  a  scholar,  critic, 
parliamentarian,  orator,  voluminous  writer. 
He  seems  equally  at  home  in  every  field  of 
human  activity — a  man  of  prodigious  capacity 
and  enormous  acquirements.  He  can  take  up, 
with  a  turn  of  the  hand,  and  always  with  vigor, 
the  cause  of  the  Greeks,  Papal  power,  educa 
tion,  theology,  the  influence  of  Egypt  on 
Homer,  the  effect  of  English  legislation  on 
King  O'Brien,  contributing  something  note 
worthy  to  all  the  discussions  of  the  day.  But 
I  am  not  aware  that  he  has  ever  produced  a 
single  page  of  literature.  Whatever  space  he 
has  filled  in  his  own  country,  whatever  and 
however  enduring  the  impression  he  has  made 
upon  English  life  and  society,  does  it  seem 
likely  that  the  sum  total  of  his  immense  activ 
ity  in  so  many  fields,  after  the  passage  of  so 
many  years,  will  be  worth  to  the  world  as  much 
as  the  simple  story  of  fiab  and  his  Friends? 


40  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

Already  in  America  I  doubt  if  it  is.  The  il 
lustration  might  have  more  weight  with  some 
minds  if  I  contrasted  the  work  of  this  great 
man — as  to  its  answering  to  a  deep  want  in  hu 
man  nature — with  a  novel  like  Henry  Esmond 
or  a  poem  like  In  Memoriam;  but  I  think  it  is 
sufficient  to  rest  it  upon  so  slight  a  perform 
ance  as  the  sketch  by  Dr.  John  Brown,  of  Ed 
inburgh.  For  the  truth  is  that  a  little  page  of 
literature,  nothing  more  than  a  sheet  of  paper 
with  a  poem  written  on  it,  may  have  that  vi 
tality,  that  enduring  quality,  that  adaptation 
to  life,  that  make  it  of  more  consequence  to  all 
who  inherit  it  than  every  material  achievement 
of  the  age  that  produced  it.  It  was  nothing 
but  a  sheet  of  paper  with  a  poem  on  it,  carried 
to  the  door  of  his  London  patron,  for  which 
the  poet  received  a  guinea,  and  perhaps  a  seat 
at  the  foot  of  my  lord's  table.  What  Avas 
that  scrap  compared  to  my  lord's  business,  his 
great  establishment,  his  equipages  in  the  Park, 
his  position  in  society,  his  weight  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  his  influence  in  Europe  ?  And  yet 
that  scrap  of  paper  has  gone  the  world  over ; 
it  has  been  sung  in  the  camp,  wept  over  in  the 
lonely  cottage ;  it  has  gone  with  the  marching 
regiments,  with  the  explorers — with  mankind, 
in  short,  on  its  way  down  the  ages,  brighten- 


RELATION    OF    LITEKATURE    TO    LIFE  41 

ing,  consoling,  elevating  life ;  and  my  lord, 
who  regarded  as  scarcely  above  a  menial  the 
poet  to  whom  he  tossed  the  guinea — my  lord, 
with  all  his  pageantry  and  power,  has  utterly 
gone  and  left  no  witness. 

(1886.) 


SIMPLICITY 


SIMPLICITY 

No  doubt  one  of  the  most  charming  crea 
tions  in  all  poetry  is  Nausicaii,  the  white-armed 
daughter  of  King  Alcinous.  There  is  no  scene, 
no  picture,  in  the  heroic  times  more  pleasing 
than  the  meeting  of  Ulysses  with  this  dam 
sel  on  the  wild  sea -shore  of  Scheria,  where 
the  Wanderer  had  been  tossed  ashore  by  the 
tempest.  The  place  of  this  classic  meeting 
was  probably  on  the  west  coast  of  Corfu,  that 
incomparable  island,  to  whose  beauty  the 
legend  of  the  exquisite  maidenhood  of  the 
daughter  of  the  king  of  the  Pha3acians  has 
added  an  immortal  bloom. 

We  have  no  difficulty  in  recalling  it  in  all 
its  distinctness :  the  bright  morning  on  which 
]STausicaii  came  forth  from  the  palace,  where 
her  mother  sat  and  turned  the  distaff  loaded 
with  a  fleece  dyed  in  sea-purple,  mounted  the 
car  piled  with  the  robes  to  be  cleansed  in  the 
stream,  and,  attended  by  her  bright -haired, 
laughing  handmaidens,  drove  to  the  banks  of 


46  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

the  river,  where  out  of  its  sweet  grasses  it 
flowed  over  clean  sand  into  the  Adriatic.  The 
team  is  loosed  to  browse  the  grass ;  the  gar 
ments  are  flung  into  the  dark  water,  then 
trampled  with  hasty  feet  in  frolic  rivalry,  and 
spread  upon  the  gravel  to  dry.  Then  the 
maidens  bathe,  give  their  limbs  the  delicate 
oil  from  the  cruse  of  gold,  sit  by  the  stream 
and  eat  their  meal,  and,  refreshed,  mistress 
and  maidens  lay  aside  their  veils  and  play  at 
ball,  and  Nausicaii  begins  a  song.  Though  all 
were  fair,  like  Diana  was  this  spotless  virgin 
midst  her  maids.  A  missed  ball  and  maidenly 
screams  waken  Ulysses  from  his  sleep  in  the 
thicket.  At  the  apparition  of  the  unclad, 
shipwrecked  sailor  the  maidens  flee  right  and 
left.  E~ausicaii  alone  keeps  her  place,  secure 
in  her  unconscious  modesty.  To  the  aston 
ished  Sport  of  Fortune  the  vision  of  this  ra 
diant  girl,  in  shape  and  stature  and  in  noble 
air,  is  more  than  mortal,  yet  scarcely  more 
than  woman : 

"Like  thee,  I  saw  of  late, 
In  Delos,  a  young  palm-tree  growing  up 
Beside  Apollo's  altar." 

When  the  "Wanderer  has  bathed,  and  been 
clad  in  robes  from  the  pile  on  the  sand,  and 


SIMPLICITY  47 

refreshed  with  food  and  wine  which  the  hos 
pitable  maidens  put  before  him,  the  train  sets 
out  for  the  town,  Ulysses  following  the  chariot 
among  the  bright-haired  women.  But  before 
that  Nausicaa,  in  the  candor  of  those  early 
days,  says  to  her  attendants : 

"  I  would  that  I  might  call 
A  man  like  him  my  husband,  dwelling  here, 
And  here  content  to  dwell." 

Is  there  any  woman  in  history  more  to  be 
desired  than  this  sweet,  pure-minded,  honest- 
hearted  girl,  as  she  is  depicted  with  a  few 
swift  touches  by  the  great  poet?  —  the  du 
tiful  daughter  in  her  father's  house,  the  joy 
ous  companion  of  girls,  the  beautiful  woman 
whose  modest  bearing  commands  the  instant 
homage  of  man.  Nothing  is  more  enduring 
in  literature  than  this  girl  and  the  scene  on 
the  Corfu  sands. 

The  sketch,  though  distinct,  is  slight,  little 

/  O  O          ' 

more  than  outlines ;  no  elaboration,  no  analy 
sis  ;  just  an  incident,  as  real  as  the  blue  sky 
of  Scheria  and  the  waves  on  the  yellow  sand. 
All  the  elements  of  the  picture  are  simple, 
human,  natural,  standing  in  as  unconfused 
relations  as  any  events  in  common  life.  I  am 
not  recalling  it  because  it  is  a  conspicuous  in- 


48  EELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

stance  of  the  true  realism  that  is  touched  with 
the  ideality  of  genius,  which  is  the  immortal 
element  in  literature,  but  as  an  illustration  of 
the  other  necessary  quality  in  all  productions 
of  the  human  mind  that  remain  age  after  age, 
and  that  is  simplicity.  This  is  the  stamp  of 
all  enduring  work ;  this  is  what  appeals  to 
the  universal  understanding  from  generation 
to  generation.  All  the  masterpieces  that  en 
dure  and  become  a  part  of  our  lives  are  char 
acterized  by  it.  The  eye,  like  the  mind,  hates 
confusion  and  overcrowding.  All  the  ele 
ments  in  beauty,  grandeur,  pathos,  are  sim 
ple — as  simple  as  the  lines  in  a  Nile  picture : 
the  strong  river,  the  yellow  desert,  the  palms, 
the  pyramids ;  hardly  more  than  a  horizontal 
line  and  a  perpendicular  line;  only  there  is 
the  sky,  the  atmosphere,  the  color — those  need 
genius. 

We  may  test  contemporary  literature  by  its 
conformity  to  the  canon  of  simplicity — that 
is,  if  it  has  not  that,  we  may  conclude  that  it 
lacks  one  essential  lasting  quality.  It  may 
please ;  it  may  be  ingenious — brilliant,  even ; 
it  may  be  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  a  fash 
ion  that  will  hold  its  power  of  pleasing  for 
half  a  century,  but  it  will  be  a  fashion.  Man 
nerisms  of  course  will  not  deceive  us,  nor  ex- 


SIMPLICITY  49 

travagances,  eccentricities,  affectations,  nor  the 
straining  after  effect  by  the  use  of  coined  or 
far-fetched  words  and  prodigality  in  adjec 
tives.  But,  style  ?  Yes,  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  style,  good  and  bad ;  and  the  style  should 
be  the  writer's  own  and  characteristic  of  him, 
as  his  speech  is.  But  the  moment  I  admire  a 
style  for  its  own  sake,  a  style  that  attracts  my 
attention  so  constantly  that  I  say,  How  good 
that  is !  I  begin  to  be  suspicious.  If  it  is  too 
good,  too  pronouncedly  good,  I  fear  I  shall 
not  like  it  so  well  on  a  second  reading.  If  it 
comes  to  stand  between  me  and  the  thought, 
or  the  personality  behind  the  thought,  I  grow 
more  and  more  suspicious.  Is  the  book  a  win 
dow,  through  which  I  am  to  see  life  ?  ThenJ  i 
I  cannot  have  the  glass  too  clear.  Is  it  to  af-/  j^ 
feet  me  like  a  strain  of  music?  Then  I  am  | 
still  more  disturbed  by  any  affectations.  Is  it 
to  produce  the  effect  of  a  picture?  Then  I  h 
know  I  want  the  simplest  harmony  of  color.  f 
And  I  have  learned  that  the  most  effective 
word  -  painting,  as  it  is  called,  is  the  simplest. 
This  is  true  if  it  is  a  question  only  of  present 
enjoyment.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  any 
piece  of  literature  which  attracts  only  by 
some  trick  of  style,  however  it  may  blaze  up 
for  a  day  and  startle  the  world  with  its  flash, 


50  RELATION   OF    LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

lacks  the  element  of  endurance.  We  do  not 
need  much  experience  to  tell  us  the  difference 
between  a  lamp  and  a  Roman  candle.  Even 
in  our  day  we  have  seen  many  reputations 
flare  up,  illuminate  the  sky,  and  then  go  out 
in  utter  darkness.  "When  we  take  a  proper 
historical  perspective,  we  see  that  it  is  the 
universal,  the  simple,  that  lasts. 

I  am  not  sure  whether  simplicity  is  a  matter 
of  nature  or  of  cultivation.  Barbarous  nature 
likes  display,  excessive  ornament ;  and  when 
we  have  arrived  at  the  nobly  simple,  the  per 
fect  proportion,  we  are  always  likely  to  re 
lapse  into  the  confused  and  the  complicated. 
The  most  cultivated  men,  we  know,  are  the 
simplest  in  manners,  in  taste,  in  their  style. 
It  is  a  note  of  some  of  the  purest  modern 
writers  that  they  avoid  comparisons,  similes, 
and  even  too  much  use  of  metaphor.  But 
the  mass  of  men  are  always  relapsing  into 
the  tawdry  and  the  over  -  ornamented.  It 
is  a  characteristic  of  youth,  and  it  seems 
also  to  be  a  characteristic  of  over  -  develop 
ment.  Literature,  in  any  language,  has  no 
sooner  arrived  at  the  highest  vigor  of  simple 
expression  than  it  begins  to  run  into  pretti- 
ness,  conceits,  over  -  elaboration.  This  is  a 
fact  which  may  be  verified  by  studying  differ- 


SIMPLICITY  51 

ent  periods,  from  classic  literature  to  our  own 
day. 

It  is  the  same  with  architecture.  The  clas 
sic  Greek  runs  into  the  excessive  elabora 
tion  of  the  Roman  period,  the  Gothic  into  the 
flamboyant,  and  so  on.  We  have  had  several 
attacks  of  architectural  measles  in  this  coun 
try,  which  have  left  the  land  spotted  all  over 
with  houses  in  bad  taste.  Instead  of  develop 
ing  the  colonial  simplicity  on  lines  of  dignity 
and  harmony  to  modern  use,  we  stuck  on  the 
pseudo-classic,  we  broke  out  in  the  Mansard, 
we  broke  all  up  into  the  whimsicalities  of  the 
so-called  Queen  Anne,  without  regard  to  cli 
mate  or  comfort.  The  eye  speedily  tires  of 
all  these  things.  It  is  a  positive  relief  to  look 
at  an  old  colonial  mansion,  even  if  it  is  as  plain 
as  a  barn.  What  the  eye  demands  is  simple 
lines,  proportion,  harmony  in  mass,  dignity ; 
above  all,  adaptation  to  use.  And  what  we 
must  have  also  is  individuality  in  house  and 
in  furniture ;  that  makes  the  city,  the  vil 
lage,  picturesque  and  interesting.  The  highest 
thing  in  architecture,  as  in  literature,  is  the 
development  of  individuality  in  simplicity. 

Dress  is  a  dangerous  topic  to  meddle  with. 
I  myself  like  the  attire  of  the  maidens  of 
Scheria,  though  Nausicaii,  wre  must  note,  was 


52  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUKE   TO    LIFE 

"  clad  royally."  But  climate  cannot  be  disre 
garded,  and  the  vestment  that  was  so  fitting 
on  a  Greek  girl  whom  I  saw  at  the  Second 
Cataract  of  the  Nile  would  scarcely  be  appro 
priate  in  New  York.  If  the  maidens  of  one 
of  our  colleges  for  girls,  say  Yassar  for  illus 
tration,  habited  like  the  Pha3acian  girls  of 
Scheria,  went  down  to  the  Hudson  to  cleanse 
the  rich  robes  of  the  house,  and  were  sur 
prised  by  the  advent  of  a  stranger  from  the 
city,  landing  from  a  steamboat — a  wandering 
broker,  let  us  say,  clad  in  wide  trousers,  long 
top-coat,  and  a  tall  hat  —  I  fancy  that  he 
would  be  more  astonished  than  Ulysses  was 
at  the  bevy  of  girls  that  scattered  at  his  ap 
proach.  It  is  not  that  women  must  be  all 
things  to  all  men,  but  that  their  simplicity  must 
conform  to  time  and  circumstance.  "What  I 
do  not  understand  is  that  simplicity  gets  ban 
ished  altogether,  and  that  fashion,  on  a  dicta 
tion  that  no  one  can  trace  the  origin  of,  makes 
that  lovely  in  the  eyes  of  women  to-day  which 
will  seem  utterly  abhorrent  to  them  to-mor 
row.  There  appears  to  be  no  line  of  taste 
running  through  the  changes.  The  only  con 
solation  to  you,  the  woman  of  the  moment, 
is  that  while  the  costume  your  grandmother 
wore  makes  her,  in  the  painting,  a  guy  in  your 


SIMPLICITY  53 

eyes,  the  costume  you  wear  will  give  your 
grandchildren  the  same  impression  of  you. 
And  the  satisfaction  for  you  is  the  thought 
that  the  latter  raiment  will  be  worse  than  the 
other  two — that  is  to  say,  less  well  suited  to 
display  the  shape,  station,  and  noble  air  which 
brought  Ulysses  to  his  knees  on  the  sands  of 
Corfu. 

Another  reason  why  I  say  that  I  do  not 
know  whether  simplicity  belongs  to  nature  or 
art  is  that  fashion  is  as  strong  to  pervert  and 
disfigure  in  savage  nations  as  it  is  in  civilized. 
It  runs  to  as  much  eccentricity  in  hair-dressing 
and  ornament  in  the  costume  of  the  jingling 
belles  of  ISTootka  and  the  maidens  of  Nubia  as  in 
any  court  or  coterie  which  we  aspire  to  imitate. 
The  only  difference  is  that  remote  and  unso 
phisticated  communities  are  more  constant  to 
a  style  they  once  adopt.  There  are  isolated 
peasant  communities  in  Europe  who  have  kept 
for  centuries  the  most  uncouth  and  inconven 
ient  attire,  while  we  have  run  through  a  dozen 
variations  in  the  art  of  attraction  by  dress, 
from  the  most  puffed  and  bulbous  ballooning 
to  the  extreme  of  limpness  and  lankness.  I 
can  only  conclude  that  the  civilized  human 
being  is  a  restless  creature,  whose  motives  in 
regard  to  costume  are  utterly  unfathomable. 


54  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

We  need,  however,  to  go  a  little  further  in 
this  question  of  simplicity.  Nausicaii  was 
"  clad  royally."  There  was  a  distinction,  then, 
between  her  and  her  handmaidens.  She  was 
clad  simply,  according  to  her  condition.  Taste 
does  not  by  any  means  lead  to  uniformity.  I 
have  read  of  a  commune  in  which  all  the 
women  dressed  alike  and  unbecomingly,  so  as 
to  discourage  all  attempt  to  please  or  attract, 
or  to  give  value  to  the  different  accents  of 
beauty.  The  end  of  those  women  was  worse 
than  the  beginning.  Simplicity  is  not  ugli 
ness,  nor  poverty,  nor  barrenness,  nor  necessa 
rily  plainness.  What  is  simplicity  for  another 
may  not  be  for  you,  for  your  condition,  your 
tastes,  especially  for  your  wants.  It  is  a  per 
sonal  question.  You  go  beyond  simplicity 
when  you  attempt  to  appropriate  more  than 
your  wants,  your  aspirations,  whatever  they 
are,  demand — that  is,  to  appropriate  for  show, 
for  ostentation,  more  than  your  life  can  assim 
ilate,  can  make  thoroughly  yours.  There  is 
no  limit  to  what  you  may  have,  if  it  is  neces 
sary  for  you,  if  it  is  not  a  superfluity  to  you. 
What  would  be  simplicity  to  you  may  be 
superfluity  to  another.  The  rich  robes  that 
Nausicaa  wore  she  wore  like  a  goddess.  The 
moment  your  dress,  your  house,  your  house- 


SIMPLICITY  55 

grounds,  your  furniture,  your  scale  of  living, 
are  beyond  the  rational  satisfaction  of  your 
own  desires — that  is,  are  for  ostentation,  for 
imposition  upon  the  public — they  are  super 
fluous,  the  line  of  simplicity  is  passed.  Every 
human  being  has  a  right  to  whatever  can  best 
feed  his  life,  satisfy  his  legitimate  desires, 
contribute  to  the  growth  of  his  soul.  It  is  not 
for  me  to  judge  whether  this  is  luxury  or 
want.  There  is  no  merit  in  riches  nor  in 
poverty.  There  is  merit  in  that  simplicity  of 
life  which  seeks  to  grasp  no  more  than  is  nec 
essary  for  the  development  and  enjoyment  of 
the  individual.  Most  of  us,  in  all  conditions, 
are  weighted  down  with  superfluities  or  wor 
ried  to  acquire  them.  Simplicity  is  making 
the  journey  of  this  life  with  just  baggage 
enough. 

The  needs  of  every  person  differ  from  the 
needs  of  every  other ;  we  can  make  no  stand 
ard  for  wants  or  possessions.  But  the  world 
would  be  greatly  transformed  and  much  more 
easy  to  live  in  if  everybody  limited  his  acqui 
sitions  to  his  ability  to  assimilate  them  to  his 
life.  The  destruction  of  simplicity  is  a  crav 
ing  for  things,  not  because  we  need  them,  but 
because  others  have  them.  Because  one  man 
who  lives  in  a  plain  little  house,  in  all  the 


56  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

restrictions  of  mean  surroundings,  would  be 
happier  in  a  mansion  suited  to  his  taste  and 
his  wants,  is  no  argument  that  another  man, 
living  in  a  palace,  in  useless  ostentation,  would 
not  be  better  off  in  a  dwelling  which  conforms 
to  his  cultivation  and  habits.  It  is  so  hard  to 
learn  the  lesson  that  there  is  no  satisfaction  in 
gaining  more  than  we  personally  want. 

The  matter  of  simplicity,  then,  comes  into 
literary  style,  into  building,  into  dress,  into  life, 
individualized  always  by  one's  personality.  In 
each  we  aim  at  the  expression  of  the  best  that 
is  in  us,  not  at  imitation  or  ostentation. 

The  women  in  history,  in  legend,  in  poetry, 
whom  we  love,  we  do  not  love  because  they 
are  "clad  royally."  In  our  day,  to  be  clad 
royally  is  scarcely  a  distinction.  To  have  a 
superfluity  is  not  a  distinction.  But  in  those 
moments  when  we  have  a  clear  vision  of  life, 
that  which  seems  to  us  most  admirable  and 
desirable  is  the  simplicity  that  endears  to  us 
the  idyl  of  Nausicaa. 

(1889.) 


EQUALITY 


"EQUALITY* 

IN  accordance  with  the  advice  of  Diogenes 
of  Apollonia  in  the  beginning  of  his  treatise  on 
Natural  Philosophy — "  It  appears  to  me  to  be 
well  for  every  one  who  commences  any  sort  of 
philosophical  treatise  to  lay  down  some  un 
deniable  principle  to  start  with" — we  offer  this: 

All  men  are  created  unequal. 

It  would  be  a  most  interesting  study  to  trace 
the  growth  in  the  world  of  the  doctrine  of 
"  equality."  That  is  not  the  purpose  of  this 
essay,  any  further  than  is  necessary  for  defini 
tion.  We  use  the  term  in  its  popular  sense,  in 
the  meaning,  somewhat  vague,  it  is  true,  which 
it  has  had  since  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  the  popular  apprehension  it  is  apt 
to  be  confounded  with  uniformity ;  and  this 
not  without  reason,  since  in  many  applications 
of  the  theory  the  tendency  is  to  produce  like 
ness  or  uniformity.  Nature,  with  equal  laws, 
tends  always  to  diversity ;  and  doubtless  the 
just  notion  of  equality  in  human  affairs  consists 


60  DELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

with  unlikeness.  Our  purpose  is  to  note  some 
of  the  tendencies  of  the  dogma  as  it  is  at  pres 
ent  understood  by  a  considerable  portion  of 
mankind. 

We  regard  the  formulated  doctrine  as  mod 
ern.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  some 
notion  of  the  "  equality  of  men  "  did  not  un 
derlie  the  socialistic  and  communistic  ideas 
which  prevailed  from  time  to  time  in  the  an 
cient  world,  and  broke  out  with  volcanic  vio 
lence  in  the  Grecian  and  Roman  communities. 
But  those  popular  movements  seem  to  us  rath 
er  blind  struggles  against  physical  evils,  and 
to  be  distinguished  from  those  more  intelli 
gent  actions  based  upon  the  theory  which  be 
gan  to  stir  Europe  prior  to  the  Reformation. 

It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  take  the 
well-defined  theory  of  modern  times.  Whether 
the  ideal  republic  of  Plato  was  merely  a  con 
venient  form  for  philosophical  speculation,  or 
whether,  as  the  greatest  authority  on  political 
economy  in  Germany,  Dr.  William  Roscher, 
thinks,  it  "was  no  mere  fancy;"  whether 
Plato's  notion  of  the  identity  of  man  and  the 
state  is  compatible  with  the  theory  of  equality, 
or  whether  it  is,  as  many  communists  say,  in 
dispensable  to  it,  we  need  not  here  discuss.  It 
is  true  that  in  his  Republic  almost  all  the 


"  EQUALITY  "  61 

social  theories  which  have  been  deduced  from 
the  modern  proclamation  of  equality  are  elabo 
rated.  There  was  to  be  a  community  of  prop 
erty,  and  also  a  community  of  wives  and 
children.  The  equality  of  the  sexes  was  in 
sisted  on  to  the  extent  of  living  in  common, 
identical  education  and  pursuits,  equal  share  in 
all  labors,  in  occupations,  and  in  government. 
Between  the  sexes  there  was  allowed  only  one 
ultimate  difference.  The  Greeks,  as  Professor 
Jowett  says,  had  noble  conceptions  of  woman 
hood  ;  but  Plato's  ideal  for  the  sexes  had  no 
counterpart  in  their  actual  life,  nor  could  they 
have  understood  the  sort  of  equality  upon 
which  ho  insisted.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
"Romans  throughout  their  history. 

More  than  any  other  Oriental  peoples  the 
Egyptians  of  the  Ancient  Empire  entertained 
the  idea  of  the  equality  of  the  sexes ;  but  the 
equality  of  man  was  not  conceived  by  them. 
Still  less  did  any  notion  of  it  exist  in  the  Jew 
ish  state.  It  was  the  fashion  with  the  socialists 
of  1793,  as  it  has  been  with  the  international 
assemblages  at  Geneva  in  our  own  da}7,  to  trace 
the  genesis  of  their  notions  back  to  the  first 
Christian  age.  The  far-reaching  influence  of 
the  new  gospel  in  the  liberation  of  the  hu 
man  mind  and  in  promoting  just  and  divinely 


62  EELATION   OF   LITERATUKE   TO   LIFE 

ordered  relations  among  men  is  admitted ;  its 
origination  of  the  social  and  political  dogma 
we  are  considering  is  denied.  We  do  not  find 
that  Christ  himself  anywhere  expressed  it  or 
acted  on  it.  He  associated  with  the  lowly,  the 
vile,  the  outcast ;  he  taught  that  all  men,  ir 
respective  of  rank  or  possessions,  are  sinners, 
and  in  equal  need  of  help.  But  he  attempted 
no  change  in  the  conditions  of  society.  The 
"communism"  of  the  early  Christians  was  the 
temporary  relation  of  a  persecuted  and  isolated 
sect,  drawn  together  by  common  necessities 
and  dangers,  and  by  the  new  enthusiasm  of 
self-surrender.*  Paul  announced  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man,  but  he  as  clearly  recog 
nized  the  subordination  of  society,  in  the  duties 
of  ruler  and  subject,  master  and  slave,  and  in 
all  the  domestic  relations;  and  although  his 
gospel  may  be  interpreted  to  contain  the  ele- 

*  "The  community  of  goods  of  the  first  Christians  at 
Jerusalem,  so  frequently  cited  and  extolled,  was  only  a 
community  of  use,  not  of  ownership  (Acts  iv.  32),  and 
throughout  a  voluntary  act  of  love,  not  a  duty  (v.  4);  least 
of  all,  a  right  which  the  poorer  might  assert.  Spite  of  all 
this,  that  community  of  goods  produced  a  chronic  state  of 
poverty  in  the  church  of  Jerusalem."  (Principles  of 
Political  Economy.  By  William  Koscher.  Note  to  Section 
LXXXI.  English  translation.  New  York  :  Henry  Holt 
&  Co.  1878.) 


EQUALITY "  63 

ments  of  revolution,  it  is  not  probable  that  he 
undertook  to  inculcate,  by  the  proclamation  of 
"  universal  brotherhood,''  anything  more  than 
the  duty  of  universal  sympathy  between  all 
peoples  and  classes  as  society  then  existed. 

If  Christianity  has  been  and  is  the  force  in 
promoting  and  shaping  civilization  that  we 
regard  it,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  not  as  a 
political  agent,  or  an  annuller  of  the  inequali 
ties  of  life,  that  we  are  to  expect  aid  from  it. 
Its  office,  or  rather  one  of  its  chief  offices  on 
earth,  is  to  diffuse  through  the  world,  regard 
less  of  condition  or  possessions  or  talent  or 
opportunity,  sympathy  and  a  recognition  of 
the  value  of  manhood  underlying  every  lot 
and  every  diversity — a  value  not  measured  by 
earthly  accidents,  but  by  heavenly  standards. 
This  we  understand  to  be  "  Christian  equal 
ity."  Of  course  it  consists  with  inequalities 
of  condition,  with  subordination,  discipline, 
obedience ;  to  obey  and  serve  is  as  honorable 
as  to  command  and  to  be  served. 

If  the  religion  of  Christ  should  ever  be  ac 
climated  on  earth,  the  result  would  not  be  the 
removal  of  hardships  and  suffering,  or  of  the 
necessity  of  self -sacrifice ;  but  the  bitterness 
and  discontent  at  unequal  conditions  would 
measurably  disappear.  At  the  bar  of  Chris- 


64  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

tianity  the  poor  man  is  the  equal  of  the  rich, 
and  the  learned  of  the  unlearned,  since  intel 
lectual  acquisition  is  no  guarantee  of  moral 
worth.  The  content  that  Christianity  would 
bring  to  our  perturbed  society  would  come 
from  the  practical  recognition  of  the  truth 
that  all  conditions  may  be  equally  honorable. 
Ihe  assertion  of  the  dignity  of  man  and  of 
labor  is,  we  imagine,  the  sum  and  substance  of 
the  equality  and  communism  of  the  New  Tes 
tament.  But  we  are  to  remember  that  this  is 
not  merely  a  "  gospel  for  the  poor." 

Whatever  the  theories  of  the  ancient  world 
were,  the  development  of  democratic  ideas  is 
sufficiently  marked  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  even  in  the  fourteenth,  to  rob  the  eigh 
teenth  of  the  credit  of  originating  the  doctrine 
of  equality.  To  mention  only  one  of  the  ear 
ly  writers,*  Marsilio,  a  physician  of  Padua,  in 
1324,  said  that  the  laws  ought  to  be  made  by 


*  For  copious  references  to  authorities  on  the  spread  of 
communistic  and  socialistic  ideas  and  libertine  community 
of  goods  and  women  in  four  periods  of  the  world's  his 
tory — namely,  at  the  time  of  the  decline  of  Greece,  in  the 
degeneration  of  the  Roman  republic,  among  the  moderns 
in  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  and  again  in  our  own 
day — see  Reseller's  Political  Economy,  notes  to  Section 
LXXIX.,  et  seq. 


<C  EQUALITY  "  65 

all  the  citizens ;  and  he  based  this  sovereignty 
of  the  people  upon  the  greater  likelihood  of 
laws  being  better  obeyed,  and  also  being  good 
laws,  when  they  were  made  by  the  whole  body 
of  the  persons  affected. 

In  1750  and  1753,  J.  J.  Rousseau  published 
his  two  discourses  on  questions  proposed  by 
the  Academy  of  Dijon :  "  Has  the  Restoration 
of  Sciences  Contributed  to  Purify  or  to  Cor 
rupt  Manners?"  and  "What  is  the  Origin  of 
Inequality  among  Men,  and  is  it  Authorized 
by  Natural  Law?"  These  questions  show  the 
direction  and  the  advance  of  thinking  on  so 
cial  topics  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury.  Rousseau's  Contrat-Social  and  the  novel 
Emile  were  published  in  1761. 

But  almost  three-quarters  of  a  century  be 
fore,  in  1690,  John  Locke  published  his  two 
treatises  on  government.  Rousseau  was  fa 
miliar  with  them.  Mr.  John  Morley,  in  his 
admirable  study  of  Rousseau,*  fully  discusses 
the  latter's  obligation  to  Locke ;  and  the  expo 
sition  leaves  Rousseau  little  credit  for  original 
ity,  but  considerable  for  illogical  misconcep 
tion.  He  was,  in  fact,  the  most  illogical  of 

*  Rousseau.  By  John  Morley.  London  :  Chapman  & 
Hall.  1873.  I  have  used  it  freely  in  the  glance  at  this 
period. 


66  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

great  men,  and  the  most  inconsistent  even  of 
geniuses.  The  Contrat-Social  is  a  reaction  in 
many  things  from  the  discourses,  and  Emile 
is  almost  an  entire  reaction,  especially  in  the 
theory  of  education,  from  both. 

His  central  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty 
was  taken  from  Locke.  The  English  philoso 
pher  said,  in  his  second  treatise,  "  To  under 
stand  political  power  aright  and  derive  it  from 
its  original,  we  must  consider  what  state  all 
men  are  naturally  in ;  and  that  is  a  state  of 
perfect  freedom  to  order  their  actions  and  dis 
pose  of  their  persons  and  possessions  as  they 
think  fit,  within  the  bounds  of  the  law  of  nat 
ure,  without  asking  leave  or  depending  upon 
the  will  of  any  other  man — a  state  also  of 
equality,  wherein  all  the  power  and  jurisdic 
tion  is  reciprocal,  no  one  having  more  than 
another;  there  being  nothing  more  evident 
than  that  creatures  of  the  same  species  and 
rank,  promiscuously  born  to  all  the  advantages 
of  nature  and  the  use  of  the  same  faculties, 
should  also  be  equal  one  amongst  another,  with 
out  subordination  or  subjection,  unless  the  Lord 
and  Master  of  them  all  should  by  any  manifest 
declaration  of  His  will  set  one  above  another, 
and  confer  on  him  by  an  evident  and  clear  ap 
pointment  an  undoubted  right  to  dominion  and 


"  EQUALITY  "  67 

sovereignty."  But  a  state  of  liberty  is  not  a 
state  of  license.  We  cannot  exceed  our  own 
rights  without  assailing  the  rights  of  others. 
There  is  no  such  subordination  as  authorizes 
us  to  destroy  one  another.  As  every  one  is 
bound  to  preserve  himself,  so  he  is  bound  to 
preserve  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  except  to  do 
justice  upon  an  offender  we  may  not  impair 
the  life,  liberty,  health,  or  goods  of  another. 
Here  Locke  deduces  the  power  that  one  man 
may  have  over  another ;  community  could  not 
exist  if  transgressors  were  not  punished.  Every 
wrong-doer  places  himself  in  "  a  state  of  war." 
Here  is  the  difference  between  the  state  of 
nature  and  the  state  of  war,  which  men,  says 
Locke,  have  confounded — alluding  probably  to 
Hobbes's  notion  of  the  lawlessness  of  human 
society  in  the  original  condition. 

The  portion  of  Locke's  treatise  which  was 
not  accepted  by  the  French  theorists  was  that 
relating  to  property.  Property  in  lands  or 
goods  is  due  wholly  and  only  to  the  labor  man 
has  put  into  it.  By  labor  he  has  removed  it 
from  the  common  state  in  which  nature  has 
placed  it,  and  annexed  something  to  it  that 
excludes  the  common  rights  of  other  men. 

Rousseau  borrowed  from.  Hobbes  as  well  as 
from.  Locke  in  his  conception  of  popular  sover- 


68  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

eignty ;  but  this  was  not  his  only  lack  of  orig 
inality.  His  discourse  on  primitive  society,  his 
unscientific  and  unhistoric  notions  about  the 
original  condition  of  man,  were  those  common 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  All 
the  thinkers  and  philosophers  and  fine  ladies 
and  gentlemen  assumed  a  certain  state  of  nat 
ure,  and  built  upon  it,  out  of  words  and  phrases, 
an  airy  and  easy  reconstruction  of  society,  with 
out  a  thought  of  investigating  the  past,  or 
inquiring  into  the  development  of  mankind. 
Every  one  talked  of  "  the  state  of  nature  "  as 
if  he  knew  all  about  it.  "  The  conditions  of 
primitive  man,"  says  Mr.  Morley,  "  were  dis 
cussed  by  very  incompetent  ladies  and  gentle 
men  at  convivial  supper -parties,  and  settled 
with  complete  assurance."  That  was  the  age 
when  solitary  Frenchmen  plunged  into  the 
wilderness  of  North  America,  confidently  ex 
pecting  to  recover  the  golden  age  under  the 
shelter  of  a  wigwam  and  in  the  society  of  a 
squaw. 

The  state  of  nature  of  Rousseau  was  a  state 
in  which  inequality  did  not  exist,  and  with  a 
fervid  rhetoric  he  tried  to  persuade  his  readers 
that  it  was  the  happier  state.  He  recognized 
inequality,  it  is  true,  as  a  word  of  two  differ 
ent  meanings  ?  first,  physical  inequality,  differ- 


"  EQUALITY  "  69 

ence  of  age,  strength,  health,  and  of  intelligence 
and  character ;  second,  moral  and  political  in 
equality,  difference  of  privileges  which  some 
enjoy  to  the  detriment  of  others — such  as 
riches,  honor,  power.  The  first  difference  is 
established  by  nature,  the  second  by  man.  So 
long,  however,  as  the  state  of  nature  endures, 
no  disadvantages  flow  from  the  natural  in 
equalities. 

In  Rousseau's  account  of  the  means  by 
which  equality  was  lost,  the  incoming  of  the 
ideas  of  property  is  prominent.  From  prop 
erty  arose  civil  society.  With  property  came 
in  inequality.  His  exposition  of  inequality  is 
confused,  and  it  is  not  possible  always  to  tell 
whether  he  means  inequality  of  possessions  or 
of  political  rights.  His  contemporary,  Morel- 
ly,  who  published  the  Basileade  in  1753,  was 
troubled  by  no  such  ambiguity.  He  accepts 
the  doctrine  that  men  are  formed  by  laws,  but 
holds  that  they  are  by  nature  good,  and  that 
laws,  by  establishing  a  division  of  the  products 
of  nature,  broke  up  the  sociability  of  men,  and 
that  all  political  and  moral  evils  are  the  result 
of  private  property.  Political  inequality  is  an 
accident  of  inequality  of  possessions,  and  the 
renovation  of  the  latter  lies  in  the  abolition  of 
the  former. 


70  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

The  opening  sentence  of  the  Contrat-Social 
is,  a  Man  is  born  free,  and  everywhere  he  is  a 
slave,"  a  statement  which  it  is  difficult  to  recon 
cile  with  the  fact  that  every  human  being  is 
born  helpless,  dependent,  and  into  conditions 
of  subjection,  conditions  that  we  have  no  rea 
son  to  suppose  were  ever  absent  from  the  race. 
But  Rousseau  never  said,  "All  men  are  born 
equal."  He  recognized,  as  we  have  seen,  nat 
ural  inequality.  "What  he  held  was  that  the 
artificial  differences  springing  from  the  social 
union  were  disproportionate  to  the  capacities 
springing  from  the  original  constitution ;  and 
that  society,  as  now  organized,  tends  to  make 
the  gulf  wider  between  those  who  have  privi 
leges  and  those  who  have  none. 

The  well-known  theory  upon  which  Rous 
seau's  superstructure  rests  is  that  society  is 
the  result  of  a  compact,  a  partnership  between 
men.  They  have  not  made  an  agreement  to 
submit  their  individual  sovereignty  to  some 
superior  power,  but  they  have  made  a  covenant 
of  brotherhood.  It  is  a  contract  of  association. 
Men  were,  and  ought  to  be,  equal  co-operators, 
not  only  in  politics,  but  in  industries  and  all 
the  affairs  of  life.  All  the  citizens  are  partici 
pants  in  the  sovereign  authority.  Their  sov 
ereignty  is  inalienable ;  power  may  be  trans- 


"  EQUALITY  "  71 

mitted,  but  not  will ;  if  the  people  promise  to 
obey,  it  dissolves  itself  by  the  very  act  —  if 
there  is  a  master,  there  is  no  longer  a  people. 
Sovereignty  is  also  indivisible ;  it  cannot  be 
split  up  into  legislative,  judiciary,  and  execu 
tive  power. 

Society  being  the  result  of  a  compact  made 
by  men,  it  followed  that  the  partners  could 
at  any  time  remake  it,  their  sovereignty  being 
inalienable.  And  this  the  French  socialists, 
misled  by  a  priori  notions,  attempted  to  do, 
on  the  theory  of  the  Contrat-Social,  as  if  they 
had  a  tabula  rasa,  without  regarding  the  ex 
isting  constituents  of  society,  or  traditions,  or 
historical  growths. 

Equality,  as  a  phrase,  having  done  duty  as  a 
dissolvent,  was  pressed  into  service  as  a  con 
structor.  As  this  is  not  so  much  an  essay  on 
the  nature  of  equality  as  an  attempt  to  indi 
cate  some  of  the  modern  tendencies  to  carry 
out  what  is  illusory  in  the  dogma,  perhaps 
enough  has  been  said  of  this  period.  Mr. 
Morley  very  well  remarks  that  the  doctrine  of 
equality  as  a  demand  for  a  fair  chance  in  the 
world  is  unanswerable;  but  that  it  is  false 
when  it  puts  him  who  uses  his  chance  well  on 
the  same  level  with  him  who  uses  it  ill.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  when  Condorcet  said,  "Not 


72  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

only  equality  of  right,  but  equality  of  fact,  is 
the  goal  of  the  social  art,"  he  uttered  the  sen 
timents  of  the  socialists  of  the  Revolution. 

The  next  authoritative  announcement  of 
equality,  to  which  it  is  necessary  to  refer,  is 
in  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence, 
in  these  words :  "  We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident:  that  all  men  are  created  equal; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  unalienable  rights ;  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ; 
that  to  secure  these  rights  governments  are 
instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just 
power  from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 
And  the  Declaration  goes  on,  in  temperate 
and  guarded  language,  to  assert  the  right  of  a 
people  to  change  their  form  of  government 
when  it  becomes  destructive  of  the  ends 
named. 

Although  the  genesis  of  these  sentiments 
seems  to  be  French  rather  than  English,  and 
equality  is  not  defined,  and  critics  have  differed 
as  to  whether  the  equality  clause  is  indepen 
dent  or  qualified  by  what  follows,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  Thomas  Jefferson 
meant  anything  inconsistent  with  the  admit 
ted  facts  of  nature  and  of  history.  It  is  im 
portant  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  statesmen  of 


EQUALITY "  73 

our  Revolution  were  inaugurating  a  political 
and  not  a  social  revolution,  and  that  the  gra 
vamen  of  their  protest  was  against  the  au 
thority  of  a  distant  crown.  Nevertheless, 
these  dogmas,  independent  of  the  circum 
stances  in  which  they  were  uttered,  have  ex 
ercised  and  do  exercise  a  very  powerful  influ 
ence  upon  the  thinking  of  mankind  on  social 
and  political  topics,  and  are  being  applied 
without  limitations,  and  without  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  if  they  are  true,  in  the  sense 
meant  by  their  originators,  they  are  not  the 
whole  truth.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  rights 
are  mentioned,  but  not  duties,  and  that  if  po 
litical  rights  only  are  meant,  political  duties 
are  not  inculcated  as  of  equal  moment.  It  is 
not  announced  that  political  power  is  a  func 
tion  to  be  discharged  for  the  good  of  the 
whole  body,  and  not  a  mere  right  to  be  en 
joyed  for  the  advantage  of  the  possessor ;  and 
it  is  to  be  noted  also  that  this  idea  did  not 
enter  into  the  conception  of  Rousseau. 

The  dogma  that  "  government  derives  its 
just  power  from  the  consent  of  the  governed" 
is  entirely  consonant  with  the  book  theories 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  needs  to  be 
confronted,  and  practically  is  confronted,  with 
the  equally  good  dogma  that  "  governments 


74  EELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

derive  their  just  power  from  conformity  with 
the  principles  of  justice."  "We  are  not  to  im 
agine,  for  instance,  that  the  framers  of  the 
Declaration  really  contemplated  the  exclusion 
from  political  organization  of  all  higher  law 
than  that  in  the  "  consent  of  the  governed," 
or  the  application  of  the  theory,  let  us  say,  to 
a  colony  composed  for  the  most  part  of  out 
casts,  murderers,  thieves,  and  prostitutes,  or  to 
such  states  as  to-day  exist  in  the  Orient.  The 
Declaration  was  framed  for  a  highly  intelli 
gent  and  virtuous  society. 

Many  writers,  and  some  of  them  English, 
have  expressed  curiosity,  if  not  wonder,  at  the 
different  fortunes  which  attended  the  doctrine 
of  equality  in  America  and  in  France.  The 
explanation  is  on  the  surface,  and  need  not  be 
sought  in  the  fact  of  a  difference  of  social  and 
political  level  in  the  two  countries  at  the  start, 
nor  even  in  the  further  fact  that  the  colonies 
were  already  accustomed  to  self-government. 
The  simple  truth  is  that  the  dogmas  of  the 
Declaration  were  not  put  into  the  fundament 
al  law.  The  Constitution  is  the  most  practical 
state  document  ever  made.  It  announces  no 
dogmas,  proclaims  no  theories.  It  accepted 
society  as  it  was,  with  its  habits  and  tradi 
tions,  raising  no  abstract  questions  whether 


"  EQUALITY  "  75 

men  are  born  free  or  equal,  or  how  society 
ought  to  be  organized.  It  is  simply  a  working 
compact,  made  by  "  the  people,"  to  promote 
union,  establish  justice,  and  secure  the  bless 
ings  of  liberty ;  and  the  equality  is  in  the  as 
sumption  of  the  right  of  "the  people  of  the 
United  States  "  to  do  this.  And  yet,  in  a  re 
cent  number  of  BlackwoocTs  Magazine,  a  writ 
er  makes  the  amusing  statement,  "  I  have  never 
met  an  American  who  could  deny  that,  while 
firmly  maintaining  that  the  theory  was  sound 
which,  in  the  beautiful  language  of  the  Con 
stitution,  proclaims  that  all  men  were  born 
equal,  he  was,"  etc. 

An  enlightening  commentary  on  the  mean 
ing  of  the  Declaration,  in  the  minds  of  the 
American  statesmen  of  the  period,  is  fur 
nished  by  the  opinions  which  some  of  them  ex 
pressed  upon  the  French  Revolution  while  it 
was  in  progress.  Gouverneur  Morris,  minister 
to  France  in  1TS9,  was  a  conservative  repub 
lican  ;  Thomas  Jefferson  was  a  radical  demo 
crat.  Both  of  them  had  a  warm  sympathy 
with  the  French  "  people  "  in  the  Revolution  ; 
both  hoped  for  a  republic ;  both  recognized, 
we  may  reasonably  infer,  the  sufficient  cause 
of  the  Revolution  in  the  long-continued  cor 
ruption  of  court  and  nobility,  and  the  intoler- 


76  RELATION    OF  LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

able  sufferings  of  the  lower  orders ;  and  both, 
we  have  equal  reason  to  believe,  thought  that 
a  fair  accommodation,  short  of  a  dissolution 
of  society,  was  defeated  by  the  imbecility  of 
the  king  and  the  treachery  and  malignity  of 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  nobility.  The 
Eevolution  was  not  caused  by  theories,  how 
ever  much  it  may  have  been  excited  or  guided 
by  them.  But  both  Morris  and  Jefferson  saw 
the  futility  of  the  application  of  the  abstract 
dogma  of  equality  and  the  theories  of  the 
Social  Contract  to  the  reconstruction  of  gov 
ernment  and  the  reorganization  of  society  in 
France. 

If  the  aristocracy  were  malignant — though 
numbers  of  them  were  far  from,  being  so — 
there  was  also  a  malignant  prejudice  aroused 
against  them,  and  M.  Taine  is  not  far  wrong 
when  he  says  of  this  prejudice,  u  Its  hard,  dry 
kernel  consists  of  the  abstract  idea  of  equal 
ity."  *  Taine' s  French  Revolution  is  cynical, 
and,  with  all  its  accumulation  of  material, 
omits  some  facts  necessary  to  a  philosophical 
history ;  but  a  passage  following  that  quoted 
is  worth  reproducing  in  this  connection :  "  The 

*  The  Frencli  Revolution.  By  H.  A.  Taine.  Vol.  i.,  bk. 
ii.,  cbap.  ii.,  sec.  iii.  Translation.  New  York:  Henry 
Holt  &  Co. 


"  EQUALITY  "  77 

treatment  of  the  nobles  of  the  Assembly  is  the 
same  as  the  treatment  of  the  Protestants  by 
Louis  XIV.  . . .  One  hundred  thousand  French 
men  driven  out  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  one  hundred  thousand  driven  out 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth !  Mark  how  an 
intolerant  democracy  completes  the  work  of  an 
intolerant  monarchy  !  The  moral  aristocracy 
was  mowed  down  in  the  name  of  uniformity ; 
the  social  aristocracy  is  mowed  down  in  the 
name  of  equality.  For  the  second  time  an 
abstract  principle,  and  with  the  same  effect, 
buries  its  blade  in  the  heart  of  a  living  soci 
ety." 

Notwithstanding  the  world-wide  advertise 
ment  of  the  French  experiment,  it  has  taken 
almost  a  century  for  the  dogma  of  equality, 
at  least  outside  of  France,  to  filter  down  from 
the  speculative  thinkers  into  a  general  popu 
lar  acceptance,  as  an  active  principle  to  be 
used  in  the  shaping  of  affairs,  and  to  become 
more  potent  in  the  popular  mind  than  tradi 
tion  or  habit.  The  attempt  is  made  to  apply 
it  to  society  with  a  brutal  logic;  and  we 
might  despair  as  to  the  result,  if  we  did  not 
know  that  the  world  is  not  ruled  by  logic. 
Nothing  is  so  fascinating  in  the  hands  of  the 
half -informed  as  a  neat  dogma ;  it  seems  the 


78  RELATION   OF   LITERATUKE   TO    LIFE 

perfect  key  to  all  difficulties.  The  formula  is 
applied  in  contempt  and  ignorance  of  the  past, 
as  if  building  up  were  as  easy  as  pulling  down, 
and  as  if  society  were  a  machine  to  be  moved 
by  mechanical  appliances,  and  not  a  living  or 
ganism  composed  of  distinct  and  sensitive  be 
ings.  Along  with  the  spread  of  a  belief  in 
the  uniformity  of  natural  law  has  unfortu 
nately  gone  a  suggestion  of  parallelism  of  the 
moral  law  to  it,  and  a  notion  that  if  we  can 
discover  the  right  formula,  human  society  and 
government  can  be  organized  with  a  mathe 
matical  justice  to  all  the  parts.  By  many  the 
dogma  of  equality  is  held  to  be  that  formula, 
and  relief  from  the  greater  evils  of  the  social 
state  is  expected  from  its  logical  extension. 

Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  present 
movements  and  tendencies  that  are  related, 
more  or  less,  to  this  belief : 

I.  Absolute  equality  is  seen  to  depend  upon 
absolute  supremacy  of  the  state.  Professor 
Henry  Fawcett  says,  "Excessive  dependence 
on  t'he  state  is  the  most  prominent  character 
istic  of  modern  socialism."  "  These  proposals 
to  prohibit  inheritance,  to  abolish  private  prop 
erty,  and  to  make  the  state  the  owner  of  all 
the  capital  and  the  administrator  of  the  entire 
industry  of  the  country  are  put  forward  as  rep- 


"  EQUALITY  "  79 

resenting  socialism  in  its  ultimate  and  highest 
development."  * 

Society  and  government  should  be  recast 
till  they  conform  to  the  theory,  or,  let  us  say, 
to  its  exaggerations.  Men  can  unmake  what 
they  have  made.  There  is  no  higher  author 
ity  anywhere  than  the  will  of  the  majority, 
no  matter  what  the  majority  is  in  intellect 
and  morals.  Fifty-one  ignorant  men  have  a 
natural  right  to  legislate  for  the  one  hundred, 
as  against  forty-nine  intelligent  men. 

All  men  being  equal,  one  man  is  as  fit  to 
legislate  and  execute  as  another.  A  recently 
elected  Congressman  from  Maine  vehemently 
repudiated  in  a  public  address,  as  a  slander, 
the  accusation  that  he  was  educated.  The 
theory  was  that,  uneducated,  he  was  the  prop 
er  representative  of  the  average  ignorance  of 
his  district,  and  that  ignorance  ought  to  be 
represented  in  the  legislature  in  kind.  The 
ignorant  know  better  what  they  want  than 
the  educated  know  for  them.  "  Their  educa 
tion  [that  of  college  men]  destroys  natural 
perception  and  judgment ;  so  that  cultivated 
people  are  one-sided,  and  their  judgment  is 


*  "  Socialism  in  Germany  and  the  United  States,"  Fort- 
nightly  Review,  November,  1878. 


80  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

often  inferior  to  that  of  the  working  people." 
"  Cultured  people  have  made  up  their  minds, 
and  are  hard  to  move."  "  No  lawyer  should 
be  elected  to  a  place  in  any  legislative  body."  * 

Experience  is  of  no  account,  neither  is  his 
tory,  nor  tradition,  nor  the  accumulated  wis 
dom  of  ages.  On  all  questions  of  political  econ 
omy,  finance,  morals,  the  ignorant  man  stands 
on  a  par  with  the  best  informed  as  a  legisla 
tor.  We  might  cite  any  number  of  the  re 
sults  of  these  illusions.  A  member  of  a  re 
cent  House  of  Eepresentatives  declared  that 
we  "  can  repair  the  losses  of  the  war  by  the 
issue  of  a  sufficient  amount  of  paper  money." 
An  intelligent  mechanic  of  our  acquaintance, 
a  leader  among  the  Nationals,  urging  the  the 
ory  of  his  party,  that  banks  should  be  de 
stroyed,  and  that  the  government  should  issue 
to  the  people  as  much  "  paper  money  "  as  they 
need,  denied  the  right  of  banks  or  of  any  in 
dividuals  to  charge  interest  on  money.  Yet 
he  would  take  rent  for  the  house  he  owns. 

Laws  must  be  the  direct  expression  of  the 
will  of  the  majority,  and  be  altered  solely  on 
its  will.  It  would  be  well,  therefore,  to  have 

*  Opinions  of  working-men,  reported  in  "The  Nationals, 
their  Origin  and  their  Aims,"  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  No 
vember,  1878. 


"  EQUALITY  "  81 

a  continuous  electron,  so  that,  any  day,  the 
electors  can  change  their  representative  for  a 
new  man.  "If  my  caprice  be  the  source  of 
law,  then  my  enjoyment  may  be  the  source  of 
the  division  of  the  nation's  resources."  * 

Property  is  the  creator  of  inequality,  and 
this  factor  in  our  artificial  state  can  be  elim 
inated  only  by  absorption.  It  is  the  duty  of 
the  government  to  provide  for  all  the  people, 
and  the  sovereign  people  will  see  to  it  that 
it  does.  The  election  franchise  is  a  natural 
right — a  man's  weapon  to  protect  himself.  It 
may  be  asked,  If  it  is  just  this,  and  not  a  sa 
cred  trust  accorded  to  be  exercised  for  the  ben 
efit  of  society,  why  may  not  a  man  sell  it,  if 
it  is  for  his  interest  to  do  so  ? 

What  is  there  illogical  in  these  positions 
from  the  premise  given  ?  "  Communism," 
says  Iwoscher,f  "  is  the  logically  not  inconsist 
ent  exaggeration  of  the  principle  of  equality. 
Men  who  hear  themselves  designated  as  '  the 
sovereign  people,'  and  their  welfare  as  the  su 
preme  law  of  the  state,  are  more  apt  than 
others  to  feel  more  keenly  the  distance  which 
separates  their  own  misery  from  the  super- 


*  Stabl's  Rechtsphilosopliie,  quoted  by  Reseller. 
f  Political  Economy,  bk.  i.f  ch.  v.,  §  78. 


82  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUKE   TO   LIFE 

abundance  of  others.  And,  indeed,  to  what 
an  extent  our  physical  wants  are  determined 
by  our  intellectual  mould !" 

The  tendency  of  the  exaggeration  of  man's 
will  as  the  foundation  of  government  is  dis 
tinctly  materialistic ;  it  is  a  self-sufficiency  that 
shuts  out  God  and  the  higher  law.*  "We  need 
to  remember  that  the  Creator  of  man,  and 
not  man  himself,  formed  society  and  instituted 
government ;  that  God  is  always  behind  hu 
man  society  and  sustains  it ;  that  marriage 
and  the  family  and  all  social  relations  are  di 
vinely  established ;  that  man's  duty,  coinciding 

*  "And,  indeed,  if  the  will  of  man  is  all-powerful,  if 
states  are  to  be  distinguished  from  one  another  only  by 
their  boundaries,  if  everything  may  be  changed  like  the 
scenery  in  a  play  by  a  flourish  of  the  magic  wand  of  a 
system,  if  man  may  arbitrarily  make  the  right,  if  nations 
can  be  put  through  evolutions  like  regiments  of  troops, 
what  a  field  would  the  world  present  for  attempts  at  the 
realizations  of  the  wildest  dreams,  and  what  a  temptation 
would  be  offered  to  take  possession,  by  main  force,  of  the 
government  of  human  affairs,  to  destroy  the  rights  of 
property  and  the  rights  of  capital,  to  gratify  ardent  long 
ings  without  trouble,  and  to  provide  the  much- coveted 
means  of  enjoyment !  The  Titans  have  tried  to  scale  the 
heavens,  and  have  fallen  into  the  most  degrading  material 
ism.  Purely  speculative  dogmatism  sinks  into  material 
ism."  (M.  Wolowski's  Essay  on  the  Historical  Method,  pre 
fixed  to  his  translation  of  Roschor's  Political  Economy.) 


"  EQUALITY  "  83 

with  his  right,  is,  by  the  light  of  history,  by 
experience,  by  observation  of  men,  and  by  the 
aid  of  revelation,  to  find  out  and  make  opera 
tive,  as  well  as  he  can,  the  divine  law  in  hu 
man  affairs.  And  it  may  be  added  that  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people,  as  a  divine  trust, 
may  be  as  logically  deduced  from  the  divine 
institution  of  government  as  the  old  divine 
right  of  kings.  Government,  by  whatever 
name  it  is  called,  is  a  matter  of  experience 
and  expediency.  If  we  submit  to  the  will  of 
the  majority,  it  is  because  it  is  more  conven 
ient  to  do  so ;  and  if  the  republic  or  the  democ 
racy  vindicate  itself,  it  is  because  it  works  best, 
on  the  whole,  for  a  particular  people.  But  it 
needs  no  prophet  to  say  that  it  will  not  work 
long  if  God  is  shut  out  from  it,  and  man,  in  a 
full-blown  socialism,  is  considered  the  ultimate 
authority. 

II.  Equality  of  education.  In  our  Ameri 
can  system  there  is,  not  only  theoretically  but 
practically,  an  equality  of  opportunity  in  the 
public  schools,  which  are  free  to  all  children, 
and  rise  by  gradations  from  the  primaries  to 
the  high -schools,  in  which  the  curriculum  in 
most  respects  equals,  and  in  variety  exceeds, 
that  of  many  third-class  "colleges."  In  these 
schools  nearly  the  whole  round  of  learning,  in 


84  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

languages,  science,  and  art,  is  touched.  The 
system  has  seemed  to  be  the  best  that  could 
be  devised  for  a  free  society,  where  all  take 
part  in  the  government,  and  where  so  much 
depends  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  electors. 
Certain  objections,  however,  have  been  made 
to  it.  As  this  essay  is  intended  only  to  be 
tentative,  we  shall  state  some  of  them,  with 
out  indulging  in  lengthy  comments. 

(1.)  The  first  charge  is  superficiality — a  nec 
essary  consequence  of  attempting  too  much — 
and  a  want  of  adequate  preparation  for  special 
pursuits  in  life. 

(2.)  A  uniformity  in  mediocrity  is  alleged 
from  the  use  of  the  same  text-books  and  meth 
ods  in  all  schools,  for  all  grades  and  capaci 
ties.  This  is  one  of  the  most  common  criti 
cisms  on  our  social  state  by  a  certain  class  of 
writers  in  England,  who  take  an  unflagging 
interest  in  our  development.  One  answer  to 
it  is  this :  There  is  more  reason  to  expect  va 
riety  of  development  and  character  in  a  gen 
erally  educated  than  in  an  ignorant  commu 
nity  ;  there  is  no  such  uniformity  as  the  dull 
level  of  ignorance. 

(3.)  It  is  said  that  secular  education — and 
the  general  schools  open  to  all  in  a  communi 
ty  of  mixed  religions  must  be  secular — is  train- 


"  EQUALITY  "  85 

ing  the  rising  generation  to  be  materialists  and 
socialists. 

(4.)  Perhaps  a  better-founded  charge  is  that 
a  system  of  equal  education,  with  its  superfi 
ciality,  creates  discontent  with  the  condition 
in  which  a  majority  of  men  must  be — that  of 
labor — a  distaste  for  trades  and  for  hand- work, 
an  idea  that  what  is  called  intellectual  labor 
(let  us  say,  casting  up  accounts  in  a  shop,  or 
writing  trashy  stories  for  a  sensational  news 
paper)  is  more  honorable  than  physical  labor ; 
and  encourages  the  false  notion  that  "  the  ele 
vation  of  the  working  classes  "  implies  the  re 
moval  of  men  and  women  from  those  classes. 

We  should  hesitate  to  draw  adverse  conclu 
sions  in  regard  to  a  system  yet  so  young  that 
its  results  cannot  bo  fairly  estimated.  Only 
after  two  or  three  generations  can  its  effects 
upon  the  character  of  a  great  people  be  meas 
ured.  Observations  differ,  and  testimony  is 
difficult  to  obtain.  "We  think  it  safe  to  say 
that  those  states  are  most  prosperous  which 
have  the  best  free  schools.  But  if  the  philoso 
pher  inquires  as  to  the  general  effect  upon  the 
national  character  in  respect  to  the  objections 
named,  he  must  wait  for  a  reply. 

III.  The  pursuit  of  the  chimera  of  social 
equality,  from  the  belief  that  it  should  logi- 


86  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

cally  follow  political  equality ;  resulting  in  ex 
travagance,  misapplication  of  natural  capaci 
ties,  a  notion  that  physical  labor  is  dishonor 
able,  or  that  the  state  should  compel  all  to 
labor  alike,  and  in  efforts  to  remove  inequali 
ties  of  condition  by  legislation. 

IY.  The  equality  of  the  sexes.  The  stir  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  gave  a 
great  impetus  to  the  emancipation  of  woman ; 
though,  curiously  enough,  Rousseau,  in  unfold 
ing  his  plan  of  education  for  Sophie,  in  Emile, 
inculcates  an  almost  Oriental  subjection  of 
woman — her  education  simply  that  she  may 
please  man.  The  true  enfranchisement  of 
woman — that  is,  the  recognition  (by  herself  as 
well  as  by  man)  of  her  real  place  in  the  econ 
omy  of  the  world,  in  the  full  development  of 
her  capacities — is  the  greatest  gain  to  civiliza 
tion  since  the  Christian  era.  The  movement 
has  its  excesses,  and  the  gain  has  not  been 
without  loss.  "  When  we  turn  to  modern  lit 
erature,"  writes  Mr.  Morley,  "  from  the  pages 
in  which  Fenelon  speaks  of  the  education  of 
girls,  who  does  not  feel  that  the  world  has 
lost  a  sacred  accent — that  some  ineffable  es 
sence  has  passed  out  from  our  hearts  ?" 

How  far  the  expectation  has  been  realized 
that  women,  in  fiction,  for  instance,  would  be 


"  EQUALITY  "  87 

more  accurately  described,  better  understood, 
and  appear  as  nobler  and  lovelier  beings  when 
women  wrote  the  novels,  this  is  not  the  place 
to  inquire.  The  movement  has  results  which 
are  unavoidable  in  a  period  of  transition,  and 
probably  only  temporary.  The  education  of 
woman  and  the  development  of  her  powers 
hold  the  greatest  promise  for  the  regenera 
tion  of  society.  But  this  development,  yet  in 
its  infancy,  and  pursued  with  much  crudeness 
and  misconception  of  the  end,  is  not  enough. 
"Woman  would  not  only  be  equal  with  man, 
but  would  be  like  him ;  that  is,  perform  in 
society  the  functions  he  now  performs.  Here, 
again,  the  notion  of  equality  is  pushed  tow 
ards  uniformity.  The  reformers  admit  struct 
ural  differences  in  the  sexes,  though  these,  they 
say,  are  greatly  exaggerated  by  subjection; 
but  the  functional  differences  are  mainly  to  be 
eliminated.  Women  ought  to  mingle  in  all 
the  occupations  of  men,  as  if  the  physical  dif 
ferences  did  not  exist.  The  movement  goes 
to  obliterate,  as  far  as  possible,  the  distinction 
between  sexes.  Nature  is,  no  doubt,  amused 
at  this  attempt.  A  recent  writer  *  says :  "  The 


*  "Biology  and  Woman's  Rights,"  Quarterly  Journal 
of  Science,  November,  1878. 


88  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

femme  libre  [free  woman]  of  the  new  social 
order  may,  indeed,  escape  the  charge  of  neg 
lecting  her  family  and  her  household  by  con 
tending  that  it  is  not  her  vocation  to  become 
a  wife  and  a  mother !  Why,  then,  we  ask,  is 
she  constituted  a  woman  at  all  ?  Merely  that 
she  may  become  a  sort  of  second-rate  man  ?" 

The  truth  is  that  this  movement,  based  al 
ways  upon  a  misconception  of  equality,  so  far 
as  it  would  change  the  duties  of  the  sexes,  is  a 
retrograde.*  One  of  the  most  striking  features 

*  "  It  has  been  frequently  observed  that  among  declining 
nations  the  social  differences  between  the  two  sexes  are 
first  obliterated,  and  afterwards  even  the  intellectual  dif 
ferences.  The  more  masculine  the  women  become,  the 
more  effeminate  become  the  men.  It  is  no  good  symptom 
when  there  are  almost  as  many  female  writers  and  female 
rulers  as  there  are  male.  Such  was  the  case,  for  instance, 
in  the  Hellenistic  kingdoms,  and  in  the  age  of  the  CaBsars. 
What  to-day  is  called  by  many  the  emancipation  of  woman 
would  ultimately  end  in  the  dissolution  of  the  family, 
and,  if  carried  out,  render  poor  service  to  the  majority  of 
women.  If  man  and  woman  were  placed  entirely  on  the 
same  level,  and  if  in  the  competition  between  the  two 
sexes  nothing  but  an  actual  superiority  should  decide,  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  woman  would  soon  be  relegated  to  a 
condition  as  hard  as  that  in  which  she  is  found  among  all 
barbarous  nations.  It  is  precisely  family  life  and  higher 
civilization  that  have  emancipated  woman.  Those  the- 
orizers  who,  led  astray  by  the  dark  side  of  higher  civiliza 
tion,  preach  a  community  of  goods,  generally  contemplate 


"  EQUALITY  "  89 

in  our  progress  from  barbarism  to  civilization 
is  the  proper  adjustment  of  the  work  for  men 
and  women.  One  test  of  a  civilization  is  the 
difference  of  this  work.  This  is  a  question  not 
merely  of  division  of  labor,  but  of  differentia 
tion  with  regard  to  sex.  It  not  only  takes  into 
account  structural  differences  and  physiologi 
cal  disadvantages,  but  it  recognizes  the  finer 
and  higher  use  of  woman  in  society. 

The  attainable,  not  to  say  the  ideal,  society 
requires  an  increase  rather  than  a  decrease  of 
the  differences  between  the  sexes.  The  differ 
ences  may  be  due  to  physical  organization,  but 
the  structural  divergence  is  but  a  faint  type  of 
deeper  separation  in  mental  and  spiritual  con 
stitution.  That  which  makes  the  charm  and 
power  of  woman,  that  for  which  she  is  created, 
is  as  distinctly  feminine  as  that  which  makes 
the  charm  and  power  of  men  is  masculine. 
Progress  requires  constant  differentiation,  and 
the  line  of  this  is  the  development  of  each  sex 
in  its  special  functions,  each  being  true  to  the 

in  their  simultaneous  recommendation  of  the  emancipation 
of  woman  a  more  or  less  developed  form  of  a  community 
of  wives.  The  grounds  of  the  two  institutions  are  very 
similar."  (Roscher's  Political  Economy,  §  250).  Note  also 
that  difference  in  costumes  of  the  sexes  is  least  apparent 
among  lowly  civilized  peoples. 


90  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

highest  ideal  for  itself,  which  is  not  that  the 
woman  should  be  a  man,  or  the  man  a  woman. 
The  enjoyment  of  social  life  rests  very  large 
ly  upon  the  encounter  and  play  of  the  subtle 
peculiarities  which  mark  the  two  sexes ;  and 
society,  in  the  limited  sense  of  the  word,  not 
less  than  the  whole  structure  of  our  civiliza 
tion,  requires  the  development  of  these  pecu 
liarities.  It  is  in  diversity,  and  not  in  an  equal 
ity  tending  to  uniformity,  that  we  are  to  expect 
the  best  results  from  the  race. 

Y.  Equality  of  races ;  or  rather  a  removal 
of  the  inequalities,  social  and  political,  arising 
in  the  contact  of  different  races  by  intermar 
riage. 

Perhaps  equality  is  hardly  the  word  to  use 
here,  since  uniformity  is  the  thing  aimed  at ; 
but  the  root  of  the  proposal  is  in  the  dogma 
we  are  considering.  The  tendency  of  the  age 
is  to  uniformity.  The  facilities  of  travel  and 
communication,  the  new  inventions  and  the 
use  of  machinery  in  manufacturing,  bring  men 
into  close  and  uniform  relations,  and  induce 
the  disappearance  of  national  characteristics 
ahd  of  race  peculiarities.  Men,  the  world  over 
are  getting  to  dress  alike,  eat  alike,  and  dis 
believe  in  the  same  things.  It  is  the  senti 
mental  complaint  of  the  traveller  that  his 


"  EQUALITY  "  91 

search  for  the  picturesque  is  ever  more  dif 
ficult,  that  race  distinctions  and  habits  are  in 
a  way  to  be  improved  off  the  face  of  the  earth, 
and  that  a  most  uninteresting  monotony  is 
supervening.  The  complaint  is  not  wholly 
sentimental,  and  has  a  deeper  philosophical 
reason  than  the  mere  pleasure  in  variety  on 
this  planet. 

We  find  a  striking  illustration  of  the  equaliz 
ing,  not  to  say  levelling,  tendency  of  the  age  in 
an  able  paper  by  Canon  George  Rawlinson,  of 
the  University  of  Oxford,  contributed  recently 
to  an  American  periodical  of  a  high  class  and 
conservative  character.*  This  paper  proposes, 
as  a  remedy  for  the  social  and  political  evils 
caused  by  the  negro  element  in  our  population, 
the  miscegenation  of  the  white  and  black  races, 
to  the  end  that  the  black  race  may  be  wholly 
absorbed  in  the  white  —  an  absorption  of  four 
millions  by  thirty-six  millions,  which  he  thinks 
might  reasonably  be  expected  in  about  a  cen 
tury,  when  the  lower  type  would  disappear 
altogether. 

Perhaps  the  pleasure  of  being  absorbed  is 
not  equal  to  the  pleasure  of  absorbing,  and  we 

*  "  Duties  of  Higher  towards  Lower  Races."  By  George 
Rawlinson.  Princeton  Review.  November,  1878.  New 
York. 


93  EELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

cannot  say  how  this  proposal  will  commend 
itself  to  the  victims  of  the  euthanasia.  The 
results  of  miscegenation  on  this  continent  — 
black  with  red,  and  white  with  black  —  the 
results  morally,  intellectually,  and  physically, 
are  not  such  as  to  make  it  attractive  to  the 
American  people. 

It  is  not,  however,  upon  sentimental  grounds 
that  we  oppose  this  extension  of  the  exag 
gerated  dogma  of  equality.  Our  objection  is 
deeper.  .Race  distinctions  ought  to  be  main 
tained  for  the  sake  of  the  best  development  of 
the  race,  and  for  the  continuance  of  that  mutual 
reaction  and  play  of  peculiar  forces  between 
races  which  promise  the  highest  development 
for  the  whole.  It  is  not  for  nothing,  we  may 
suppose,  that  differentiation  has  gone  on  in  the 
world ;  and  we  doubt  that  either  benevolence 
or  self-interest  requires  this  age  to  attempt  to 
restore  an  assumed  lost  uniformity,  and  fuse  the 
race  traits  in  a  tiresome  homogeneity. 

Life  consists  in  an  exchange  of  relations,  and 
the  more  varied  the  relations  interchanged  the 
higher  the  life.  We  want  not  only  different 
races,  but  different  civilizations  in  different 
parts  of  the  globe. 

A  much  more  philosophical  view  of  the  Afri 
can  problem  and  the  proper  destiny  of  the 


"  EQUALITY  "  93 

negro  race  than  that  of  Canon  Rawlinson  is 
given  by  a  recent  colored  writer,*  an  official 
in  the  government  of  Liberia.  We  are  mis 
taken,  says  this  excellent  observer,  in  regard 
ing  Africa  as  a  land  of  a  homogeneous  pop 
ulation,  and  in  confounding  the  tribes  in  a 
promiscuous  manner.  There  are  negroes  and 
negroes.  "  The  numerous  tribes  inhabiting 
the  vast  continent  of  Africa  can  no  more  be 
regarded  as  in  every  respect  equal  than  the 
numerous  peoples  of  Asia  or  Europe  can  be  so 
regarded  ;"  and  we  are  not  to  expect  the  civil 
ization  of  Africa  to  be  under  one  government, 
but  in  a  great  variety  of  states,  developed  ac 
cording  to  tribal  and  race  affinities.  A  still 
greater  mistake  is  this  : 

"  The  mistake  which  Europeans  often  make 
in  considering  questions  of  negro  improvement 
and  the  future  of  Africa  is  in  supposing  that 
the  negro  is  the  European  in  embryo,  in  the 
undeveloped  stage,  and  that  when,  by-and-by, 
he  shall  enjoy  the  advantages  of  civilization 
and  culture,  he  will  become  like  the  European ; 
in  other  words,  that  the  negro  is  on  the  same 
line  of  progress,  in  the  same  groove,  with  the 
European,  but  infinitely  in  the  rear.  .  .  .  This 

*  "Africa  and  the  Africans."    By  Edmund  W.  Blyden. 
Fraser's  Magazine,  August,  1878. 


94  RELATION    OF   LITEEATUKE    TO    LIFE 

view  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
two  races  are  called  to  the  same  work,  and 
are  alike  in  potentiality  and  ultimate  develop 
ment,  the  negro  only  needing  the  element  of 
time,  under  certain  circumstances,  to  become 
European.  But  to  our  mind  it  is  not  a  ques 
tion  between  the  two  races  of  inferiority  or 
superiority.  There  is  no  absolute  or  essential 
superiority  on  the  one  side,  or  absolute  or  es 
sential  inferiority  on  the  other  side.  It  is  a 
question  of  difference  of  endowment  and  dif 
ference  of  destiny.  No  amount  of  training  or 
culture  will  make  the  negro  a  European.  On 
the  other  hand,  no  lack  of  training  or  defi 
ciency  of  culture  will  make  the  European  a 
negro.  The  two  races  are  not  moving  in  the 
same  groove,  with  an  immeasurable  distance 
between  them,  but  on  parallel  lines.  They 
will  never  meet  in  the  plane  of  their  activities 
so  as  to  coincide  in  capacity  or  performance. 
They  are  not  identical,  as  some  think,  but  un 
equal  •  they  are  distinct,  but  equal — an  idea 
that  is  in  no  w&y  incompatible  with  the  Script 
ure  truth  that  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all 
nations  of  men." 

The  writer  goes  on,  in  a  strain  that  is  not 
mere  fancy,  but  that  involves  one  of  the  truths 
of  inequality,  to  say  that  each  race  is  endowed 


"  EQUALITY  "  95 

with  peculiar  talents ;  that  the  negro  has  apti 
tudes  and  capacities  which  the  world  needs, 
and  will  lack  until  he  is  normally  trained.  In 
the  grand  symphony  of  the  universe,  "there 
are  several  sounds  not  yet  brought  out,  and 
the  feeblest  of  all  is  that  hitherto  produced 
by  the  negro ;  but  he  alone  can  furnish  it." 
"  When  the  African  shall  come  forward  with 
his  peculiar  gifts,  they  will  fill  a  place  never 
before  occupied."  In  short,  the  African  must 
be  civilized  in  the  line  of  his  capacities.  "  The 
present  practice  of  the  friends  of  Africa  is 
to  frame  laws  according  to  their  own  notions 
for  the  government  and  improvement  of  this 
people,  whereas  God  has  already  enacted  the 
laws  for  the  government  of  their  affairs,  which 
laws  should  be  carefully  ascertained,  inter 
preted,  and  applied  ;  for  until  they  are  found 
out  and  conformed  to,  all  labor  will  be  inef 
fective  and  resultless." 

"We  have  thus  passed  in  review  some  of  the 
tendencies  of  the  age.  "We  have  only  touched 
the  edges  of  a  vast  subject,  and  shall  be  quite 
satisfied  if  we  have  suggested  thought  in  the 
direction  indicated.  But  in  this  limited  view 
of  our  complex  human  problem  it  is  time  to 
ask  if  we  have  not  pushed  the  dogma  of  equal 
ity  far  enough.  Is  it  not  time  to  look  the 


96  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

facts  squarely  in  the  face,  and  conform  to 
them  in  our  efforts  for  social  and  political 
amelioration  ? 

Inequality  appears  to  be  the  divine  order; 
it  always  has  existed ;  undoubtedly  it  will 
continue ;  all  our  theories  and  a  priori  specu 
lations  will  not  change  the  nature  of  things. 
Even  inequality  of  condition  is  the  basis  of 
progress,  the  incentive  to  exertion.  Fortu 
nately,  if  to-day  we  could  make  every  man 
white,  every  woman  as  like  man  as  nature  per 
mits,  give  to  every  human  being  the  same 
opportunity  of  education,  and  divide  equali}^ 
among  all  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the 
world,  to-morrow  differences,  unequal  posses 
sion,  and  differentiation  would  begin  again. 
We  are  attempting  the  regeneration  of  society 
with  a  misleading  phase ;  we  are  wasting  our 
time  with  a  theory  that  does  not  fit  the  facts. 

There  is  an  equality,  but  it  is  not  of  out 
ward  show ;  it  is  independent  of  condition ;  it 
does  not  destroy  property,  nor  ignore  the  dif 
ference  of  sex,  nor  obliterate  race  traits.  It 
is  the  equality  of  men  before  God,  of  men  be 
fore  the  law ;  it  is  the  equal  honor  of  all  honor 
able  labor.  No  more  pernicious  notion  ever  ob 
tained  lodgement  in  society  than  the  common 
one  that  to- "  rise  in  the  world  "  is  necessarily 


"  EQUALITY  "  97 

to  change  the  ''condition."  Let  there  be  con 
tent  with  condition ;  discontent  with  individual 
ignorance  and  imperfection.  "  We  want,"  says 
Emerson,  "  not  a  farmer,  but  a  man  on  a 
farm."  What  a  mischievous  idea  is  that  which 
has  grown,  even  in  the  United  States,  that  man 
ual  labor  is  discreditable !  There  is  surely 
some  defect  in  the  theory  of  equality  in  our 
society  which  makes  domestic  service  to  be 
shunned  as  if  it  were  a  disgrace. 

It  must  be  observed,  further,  that  the  dogma 
of  equality  is  not  satisfied  by  the  usual  admis 
sion  that  one  is  in  favor  of  an  equality  of  rights 
and  opportunities,  but  is  against  the  sweeping 
application  of  the  theory  made  by  the  social 
ists  and  communists.  The  obvious  reply  is 
that  equal  rights  and  a  fair  chance  are  not 
possible  without  equality  of  condition,  and 
that  property  and  the  whole  artificial  consti 
tution  of  society  necessitate  inequality  of  con 
dition.  The  damage  from  the  current  exag 
geration  of  equality  is  that  the  attempt  to 
realize  the  dogma  in  fact — and  the  attempt  is 
everywhere  on  foot — can  lead  only  to  mischief 
and  disappointment. 

It  would  be  considered  a  humorous  suggest 
ion  to  advocate  inequality  as  a  theory  or  as  a 
working  dogma.  Let  us  recognize  it,  however, 


98  RELATION   OF   LITERATUKE   TO   LIFE 

as  a  fact,  and  shape  the  efforts  for  the  im 
provement  of  the  race  in  accordance  with  it, 
encouraging  it  in  some  directions,  restraining 
it  from  injustice  in  others.  Working  by  this 
recognition,  we  shall  save  the  race  from  many 
failures  and  bitter  disappointments,  and  spare 
the  world  the  spectacle  of  republics  ending 
in  despotism  and  experiments  in  government 
ending  in  anarchy. 

(1880.) 


WHAT  IS   YOUR   CULTURE   TO   ME? 


WHAT  IS  YOUR  CULTURE  TO   ME?* 

TWENTY-ONE  years  ago  in  this  house  I  heard 
a  voice  calling  me  to  ascend  the  platform,  and 
there  to  stand  and  deliver.  The  voice  was  the 
voice  of  President  North ;  the  language  was  an 
excellent  imitation  of  that  used  by  Cicero  and 
Julius  Crcsar.  I  remember  the  flattering  invi 
tation — it  is  the  classic  tag  that  clings  to  the 
graduate  long  after  he  has  forgotten  the  gen 
der  of  the  nouns  that  end  in  um — orator  prox- 
imus,  the  grateful  voice  said,  ascendat,  videlicet, 
and  so  forth.  To  be  proclaimed  an  orator,  and 
an  ascending  orator,  in  such  a  sonorous  tongue, 
in  the  face  of  a  world  waiting  for  orators,  stirred 
one's  blood  like  the  herald's  trumpet  when  the 
lists  are  thrown  open.  Alas !  for  most  of  us, 
who  crowded  so  eagerly  into  the  arena,  it  was 
the  last  appearance  as  orators  on  any  stage. 

The  facility  of  the  world  for  swallowing  up 

*  Delivered  before  the  Alumni  of  Hamilton  College, 
Clinton,  N.  Y.,  Wednesday,  June  26th,  1872. 


102  RELATION  OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

orators,  and  company  after  company  of  edu 
cated  young  men,  has  been  remarked.  But  it 
is  almost  incredible  to  me  now  that  the  class 
of  1851,  with  its  classic  sympathies  and  its 
many  revolutionary  ideas,  disappeared  in  the 
flood  of  the  world  so  soon  and  so  silently, 
causing  scarcely  a  ripple  in  the  smoothly  flow 
ing  stream.  I  suppose  the  phenomenon  has 
been  repeated  for  twenty  years.  Do  the  young 
gentlemen  at  Hamilton,  I  wonder,  still  carry 
on  their  ordinary  conversation  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  and  their  familiar  vacation  correspond 
ence  in  the  language  of  Aristophanes?  I  hope 
so.  I  hope  they  are  more  proficient  in  such 
exercises  than  the  young  gentlemen  of  twenty 
years  ago  were,  for  I  have  still  great  faith  in 
a  culture  that  is  so  far  from  any  sordid  aspira 
tion  as  to  approach  the  ideal;  although  the 
young  graduate  is  not  long  in  learning  that 
there  is  an  indifference  in  the  public  mind 
with  regard  to  the  first  aorist  that  amounts 
nearly  to  apathy,  and  that  millions  of  his  fel 
low-creatures  will  probably  live  and  die  with 
out  the  consolations  of  the  second  aorist.  It 
is  a  melancholy  fact  that,  after  a  thousand 
years  of  missionary  effort,  the  vast  majority 
of  civilized  men  do  not  know  that  gerunds  are 
found  only  in  the  singular  number. 


WHAT   IS   YOUB   CULTURE   TO   ME?  103 

I  confess  that  this  failure  of  the  annual 
graduating  class  to  make  its  expected  impres 
sion  on  the  world  has  its  pathetic  side.  Youth 
is  credulous — as  it  always  ought  to  be — and 
full  of  hope — else  the  world  were  dead  already 
—and  the  graduate  steps  out  into  life  with  an 
ingenuous  self-confidence  in  his  resources.  It 
is  to  him  an  event,  this  turning-point  in  the 
career  of  what  he  feels  to  be  an  important  and 
immortal  being.  His  entrance  is  public  and 
with  some  dignity  of  display.  For  a  day  the 
world  stops  to  see  it;  the  newspapers  spread 
abroad  a  report  of  it,  and  the  modest  scholar 
feels  that  the  eyes  of  mankind  are  fixed  on 
him  in  expectation  and  desire.  Though  mod 
est,  he  is  not  insensible  to  the  responsibility  of 
his  position.  He  has  only  packed  away  in  his 
mind  the  wisdom  of  the  ages,  and  he  does  not 
intend  to  be  stingy  about  communicating  it  to 
the  world  which  is  awaiting  his  graduation. 
Fresh  from  the  communion  with  great  thoughts 
in  great  literatures,  he  is  in  haste  to  give  man 
kind  the  benefit  of  them,  and  lead  it  on  into 
new  enthusiasm  and  new  conquests. 

The  world,  however,  is  not  very  much  ex 
cited.  The  birth  of  a  child  is  in  itself  marvel 
lous,  but  it  is  so  common.  Over  and  over  again, 
for  hundreds  of  years,  these  young  gentlemen 


104  RELATION    OF    LITEBATDEE   TO    LIFE 

have  been  coming  forward  with  their  speci 
mens  of  learning  tied  up  in  neat  little  parcels, 
all  ready  to  administer,  and  warranted  to  be 
of  the  purest  materials.  The  world  is  not  un 
kind,  it  is  not  even  indifferent,  but  it  must  be 
confessed  that  it  does  not  act  any  longer  as  if 
it  expected  to  be  enlightened.  It  is  generally 
so  busy  that  it  does  not  even  ask  the  young 
gentlemen  what  they  can  do,  but  leaves  them 
standing  with  their  little  parcels,  wondering 
when  the  person  will  pass  by  who  requires  one 
of  them,  and  when  there  will  happen  a  little 
opening  in  the  procession  into  which  they  can 
fall.  They  expected  that  way  would  be  made 
for  them  with  shouts  of  welcome,  but  they  find 
themselves  before  long  struggling  to  get  even 
a  standing-place  in  the  crowd — it  is  only  kings, 
and  the  nobility,  and  those  fortunates  who 
dwell  in  the  tropics,  where  bread  grows  on 
trees  and  clothing  is  unnecessary,  who  have 
reserved  seats  in  this  world. 

To  the  majority  of  men  I  fancy  that  literature 
is  very  much  the  same  that  history  is ;  and  histo 
ry  is  presented  as  a  museum  of  antiquities  and 
curiosities,  classified,  arranged,  and  labelled. 
One  may  walk  through  it  as  he  does  through 
the  Hotel  de  Cluny ;  he  feels  that  he  ought  to 
be  interested  in  it,  but  it  is  very  tiresome. 


WHAT   IS  YOUE   CULTUKE   TO    ME?         '    105 

Learning  is  regarded  in  like  manner  as  an  ac 
cumulation  of  literature,  gathered  into  great 
storehouses  called  libraries  —  the  thought  of 
which  excites  great  respect  in  most  minds,  but 
is  ineffably  tedious.  Year  after  year  and  age 
after  age  it  accumulates — this  evidence  and 
monument  of  intellectual  activity — piling  itself 
up  in  vast  collections,  which  it  needs  a  lifetime 
even  to  catalogue,  and  through  which  the  un 
cultured  walk  as  the  idle  do  through  the  Brit 
ish  Museum,  with  no  very  strong  indignation 
against  Omar  who  burned  the  library  at  Alex 
andria. 

To  the  popular  mind  this  vast  accumulation 
of  learning  in  libraries,  or  in  brains  that  do 
not  visibly  apply  it,  is  much  the  same  thing. 
The  business  of  the  scholar  appears  to  be  this 
sort  of  accumulation ;  and  the  young  student, 
Avho  comes  to  the  world  with  a  little  portion 
of  this  treasure  dug  out  of  some  classic  tomb 
or  medieval  museum,  is  received  with  little 
more  enthusiasm  than  is  the  miraculous  hand 
kerchief  of  St.  Veronica  by  the  crowd  of  Prot 
estants  to  whom  it  is  exhibited  on  Holy  Week 
in  St.  Peter's,  The  historian  must  make  his 
museum  live  again ;  the  scholar  must  vivify  his 
learning  with  a  present  purpose. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  that  all  this 


106  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

is  only  from  the  unsympathetic  and  worldly 
side.  I  should  think  myself  a  criminal  if  I 
said  anything  to  chill  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
young  scholar,  or  to  dash  with  any  scepticism 
his  longing  and  his  hope.  He  has  chosen  the 
highest.  His  beautiful  faith  and  his  aspiration 
are  the  light  of  life.  "Without  his  fresh  en 
thusiasm  and  his  gallant  devotion  to  learning, 
to  art,  to  culture,  the  world  would  be  dreary 
enough.  Through  him  comes  the  ever-spring 
ing  inspiration  in  affairs.  Baffled  at  every 
turn  and  driven  defeated  from  a  hundred 
fields,  he  carries  victory  in  himself.  He  be 
longs  to  a  great  and  immortal  army.  Let  him 
not  be  discouraged  at  his  apparent  little  in 
fluence,  even  though  every  sally  of  every  young 
life  may  seem  like  a  forlorn -hope.  No  man 
can  see  the  whole  of  the  battle.  It  must  needs 
be  that  regiment  after  regiment,  trained,  ac 
complished,  gay,  and  high  with  hope,  shall  be 
sent  into  the  field,  marching  on,  into  the  smoke, 
into  the  fire,  and  be  swept  away.  The  battle 
swallows  them,  one  after  the  other,  and  the 
foe  is  yet  unyielding,  and  the  ever-remorseless 
trumpet  calls  for  more  and  more.  But  not  in 
vain,  for  some  day,  and  every  day,  along  the 
line,  there  is  a  cry,  " They  fly!  they  fly!"  and 
the  whole  army  advances,  and  the  flag  is  plant- 


WHAT   IS    YOUR    CULTURE    TO    ME?  107 

ed  on  an  ancient  fortress  where  it  never  waved 
before.  And,  even  if  you  never  see  this,  bet 
ter  than  inglorious  camp-following  is  it  to  go 
in  with  the  wasting  regiment;  to  carry  the 
colors  up  the  slope  of  the  enemy's  works, 
though  the  next  moment  you  fall  and  find  a 
grave  at  the  foot  of  the  glacis. 

"What  are  the  relations  of  culture  to  common 
life,  of  the  scholar  to  the  day -laborer?  "What 
is  the  value  of  this  vast  accumulation  of  high 
er  learning,  what  is  its  point  of  contact  with 
the  mass  of  humanity,  that  toils  and  eats  and 
sleeps  and  reproduces  itself  and  dies,  genera 
tion  after  generation,  in  an  unvarying  round, 
on  an  unvarying  level?  We  have  had  dis 
cussed  lately  the  relation  of  culture  to  religion. 
Mr.  Froude,  with  a  singular,  reactionary  inge 
nuity,  has  sought  to  prove  that  the  progress  of 
the  century,  so-called,  with  all  its  material  al 
leviations,  has  done  little  in  regard  to  a  happy 
life,  to  the  pleasure  of  existence,  for  the  aver 
age  individual  Englishman.  Into  neither  of 
these  inquiries  do  I  purpose  to  enter ;  but  we 
may  not  unprofitably  turn  our  attention  to  a 
subject  closely  connected  with  both  of  them. 

It  has  not  escaped  your  attention  that  there 
are  indications  everywhere  of  what  may  be 
called  a  ground-swell.  There  is  not  simply  an 


108  RELATION   OF    LITEEATUKE   TO    LIFE 

inquiry  as  to  the  value  of  classic  culture,  a  cer 
tain  jealousy  of  the  schools  where  it  is  obtained, 
a  rough  popular  contempt  for  the  graces  of 
learning,  a  failure  to  see  any  connection  be 
tween  the  first  aorist  and  the  rolling  of  steel 
rails,  but  there  is  arising  an  angry  protest 
against  the  conditions  of  a  life  which  make 
one  free  of  the  serene  heights  of  thought  and 
give  him  range  of  all  intellectual  countries,  and 
keep  another  at  the  spade  and  the  loom,  year 
after  year,  that  he  may  earn  food  for  the  day 
and  lodging  for  the  night.  In  our  day  the 
demand  here  hinted  at  has  taken  more  definite 
form  and  determinate  aim,  and  goes  on,  visible 
to  all  men,  to  unsettle  society  and  change  so 
cial  and  political  relations.  The  great  move 
ment  of  labor,  extravagant  and  preposterous 
as  are  some  of  its  demands,  demagogic  as  are 
most  of  its  leaders,  fantastic  as  are  many  of  its 
theories,  is  nevertheless  real,  and  gigantic,  and 
full  of  a  certain  primeval  force,  and  with  a 
certain  justice  in  it  that  never  sleeps  in  human 
affairs,  but  moves  on,  blindly  often  and  de 
structively  often,  a  movement  cruel  at  once 
and  credulous,  deceived  and  betrayed,  and  re 
venging  itself  on  friends  and  foes  alike.  Its 
strength  is  in  the  fact  that  it  is  natural  and 
human ;  it  might  have  been  predicted  from  a 


WHAT    IS    YOUR    CULTURE   TO    ME?  109 

mere  knowledge  of  human  nature,  which  is  al 
ways  restless  in  any  relations  it  is  possible  to 
establish,  which  is  always  like  the  sea,  seeking 
a  level,  and  never  so  discontented  as  when  any 
thing  like  a  level  is  approximated. 

"What  is  the  relation  of  the  scholar  to  the 
present  phase  of  this  movement  ?  What  is  the 
relation  of  culture  to  it?  By  scholar  I  mean 
the  man  who  has  had  the  advantages  of  such 
an  institution  as  this.  By  culture  I  mean  that 
fine  product  of  opportunity  and  scholarship 
which  is  to  mere  knowledge  what  manners  are 
to  the  gentleman.  The  world  has  a  growing 
belief  in  the  profit  of  knowledge,  of  informa 
tion,  but  it  has  a  suspicion  of  culture.  There 
is  a  lingering  notion  in  matters  religious  that 
something  is  lost  by  refinement — at  least,  that 
there  is  danger  that  the  plain,  blunt,  essential 
truths  will  be  lost  in  aesthetic  graces.  The 
laborer  is  getting  to  consent  that  his  son  shall 
go  to  school,  and  learn  how  to  build  an  under 
shot  wheel  or  to  assay  metals ;  but  why  plant 
in  his  mind  those  principles  of  taste  which  will 
make  him  as  sensitive  to  beauty  as  to  pain, 
why  open  to  him  those  realms  of  imagination 
with  the  illimitable  horizons,  the  contours  and 
colors  of  which  can  but  fill  him  with  indefinite 
longing  ? 


110  RELATION   OF   LITEEATURE   TO   LIFE 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  in  this  presence 
to  dwell  upon  the  value  of  culture.  I  wish 
rather  to  have  you  notice  the  gulf  that  exists 
between  what  the  majority  want  to  know  and 
that  fine  fruit  of  knowledge  concerning  which 
there  is  so  widespread  an  infidelity.  Will  cult 
ure  aid  a  minister  in  a  "  protracted  meeting"  ? 
Will  the  ability  to  read  Chaucer  assist  a  shop 
keeper  ?  Will  the  politician  add  to  the  "  sweet 
ness  and  light "  of  his  lovely  career  if  he  can 
read  the  "  Battle  of  the  Frogs  and  the  Mice  "  in 
the  original  ?  What  has  the  farmer  to  do  with 
the  "  Kose  Garden  of  Saadi "  ? 

I  suppose  it  is  not  altogether  the  fault  of 
the  majority  that  the  true  relation  of  culture 
to  common  life  is  so  misunderstood.  The 
scholar  is  largely  responsible  for  it;  he  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  isolation  of  his 
position,  and  the  want  of  sympathy  it  begets. 
No  man  can  influence  his  fellows  with  any 
power  who  retires  into  his  own  selfishness, 
and  gives  himself  to  a  self-culture  which  has 
no  further  object.  What  is  he  that  he  should 
absorb  the  sweets  of  the  universe,  that  he 
should  hold  all  the  claims  of  humanity  second 
to  the  perfecting  of  himself  ?  This  effort  to 
save  his  own  soul  was  common  to  Goethe  and 
Francis  of  Assisi;  under  different  manifesta- 


WHAT   IS    YOUK   CTTLTUKE    TO    ME?  Ill 

tions  it  was  the  same  regard  for  self.  And 
where  it  is  an  intellectual  and  not  a  spiritual 
greediness,  I  suppose  it  is  what  an  old  writer 
calls  "  laying  up  treasures  in  hell." 

It  is  not  an  unreasonable  demand  of  the 
majority  that  the  few  who  have  the  advan 
tages  of  the  training  of  college  and  university 
should  exhibit  the  breadth  and  sweetness  of 
a  generous  culture,  and  should  shed  every 
where  that  light  which  ennobles  common 
things,  and  without  which  life  is  like  one  of 
the  old  landscapes  in  which  the  artist  forgot 
to  put  sunlight.  One  of  the  reasons  why  the 
college-bred  man  does  not  meet  this  reasona 
ble  expectation  is  that  his  training,  too  often, 
has  not  been  thorough  and  conscientious,  it 
has  not  been  of  himself ;  he  has  acquired,  but 
he  is  not  educated.  Another  is  that,  if  he  is 
educated,  he  is  not  impressed  with  the  inti 
macy  of  his  relation  to  that  which  is  below 
him  as  well  as  that  which  is  above  him,  and 
his  culture  is  out  of  sympathy  with  the  great 
mass  that  needs  it,  and  must  have  it,  or  it 
will  remain  a  blind  force  in  the  world,  the 
lever  of  demagogues  who  preach  social  an 
archy  and  misname  it  progress.  There  is  no 
culture  so  high,  no  taste  so  fastidious,  no 
grace  of  learning  so  delicate,  no  refinement  of 


112  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

art  so  exquisite,  that  it  cannot  at  this  hour 
find  full  play  for  itself  in  the  broadest  fields 
of  humanity ;  since  it  is  all  needed  to  soften 
the  attritions  of  common  life,  and  guide  to 
nobler  aspirations  the  strong  materialistic  in 
fluences  of  our  restless  society. 

One  reason,  as  I  said,  for  the  gulf  between 
the  majority  and  the  select  few  to  be  educa 
ted  is,  that  the  college  does  not  seldom  disap 
point  the  reasonable  expectation  concerning 
it.  The  graduate  of  the  carpenter's  shop 
knows  how  to  use  his  tools  —  or  used  to  in 
days  before  superficial  training  in  trades  be 
came  the  rule.  Does  the  college  graduate 
know  how  to  use  his  tools  ?  Or  has  he  to  set 
about  fitting  himself  for  some  employment, 
and  gaining  that  culture,  that  training  of  him 
self,  that  utilization  of  his  information  which 
will  make  him  necessary  in  the  world?  There 
has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion  whether  a 
boy  should  be  trained  in  the  classics  or  math 
ematics  or  sciences  or  modern  languages.  I 
feel  like  saying  "  yes  "  to  all  the  various  prop 
ositions.  For  Heaven's  sake  train  him  in  some 
thing,  so  that  he  can  handle  himself,  and  have 
free  and  confident  use  of  his  powers.  There 
isn't  a  more  helpless  creature  in  the  universe 
than  a  scholar  with  a  vast  amount  of  informa- 


WHAT   IS    YOUK    CULTURE   TO   ME?  113 

tion  over  which  he  has  no  control.  He  is 
like  a  man  with  a  load  of  hay  so  badly  put 
upon  his  cart  that  it  all  slides  off  before  he 
can  get  to  market.  The  influence  of  a  man 
on  the  world  is  generally  proportioned  to  his 
ability  to  do  something.  When  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  running  for  the  Legislature  the 
first  time,  on  the  platform  of  the  improvement 
of  the  navigation  of  the  Sangamon  River,  he 
went  to  secure  the  votes  of  thirty  men  who 
were  cradling  a  wrheat  field.  They  asked  no 
questions  about  internal  improvements,  but 
only  seemed  curious  whether  Abraham  had 
muscle  enough  to  represent  them  in  the  Legis 
lature.  The  obliging  man  took  up  a  cradle 
and  led  the  gang  round  the  field.  The  whole 
thirty  voted  for  him. 

What  is  scholarship  ?  The  learned  Hindu 
can  repeat  I  do  not  know  how  many  thou 
sands  of  lines  from  the  Yedas,  and  perhaps 
backwards  as  well  as  forwards.  I  heard  of 
an  excellent  old  lady  who  had  counted  how 
many  times  the  letter  A  occurs  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  The  Chinese  students  who  aspire 
to  honors  spend  years  in  verbally  memorizing 
the  classics — Confucius  and  Mencius — and  re 
ceive  degrees  and  public  advancement  upon 
ability  to  transcribe  from  memory  without 


114  RELATION   OF   LITEKATTJKE   TO   LIFE 

the  error  of  a  point,  or  misplacement  of  a 
single  tea-chest  character,  the  whole  of  some 
books  of  morals.  You  do  not  wonder  that 
China  is  to-day  more  like  an  herbarium  than 
anything  else.  Learning  is  a  kind  of  fetish, 
and  it  has  no  influence  whatever  upon  the 
great  inert  mass  of  Chinese  humanity. 

I  suppose  it  is  possible  for  a  young  gentle 
man  to  foe  able  to  read — just  think  of  it,  after 
ten  years  of  grammar  and  lexicon,  not  to 
know  Greek  literature  and  have  flexible  com 
mand  of  all  its  richness  and  beauty,  but  to 
read  it ! — it  is  possible,  I  suppose,  for  the  grad 
uate  of  college  to  be  able  to  read  all  the 
Greek  authors,  and  yet  to  have  gone,  in  re 
gard  to  his  own  culture,  very  little  deeper 
than  a  surface  reading  of  them ;  to  know 
very  little  of  that  perfect  architecture  and 
what  it  expressed ;  nor  of  that  marvellous 
sculpture  and  the  conditions  of  its  immortal 
beauty ;  nor  of  that  artistic  development 
which  made  the  Acropolis  to  bud  and  bloom 
under  the  blue  sky  like  the  final  flower  of  a 
perfect  nature ;  nor  of  that  philosophy,  that 
politics,  that  society,  nor  of  the  life  of  that 
polished,  crafty,  joyous  race,  the  springs  of  it 
and  the  far-reaching,  still  unexpended  effects 
of  it. 


WHAT    IS    YOUR   CULTURE    TO    ME?  115 

Yet  as  surely  as  that  nothing  perishes,  that 
the  Providence  of  God  is  not  a  patchwork  of 
uncontinued  efforts,  but  a  plan  and  a  prog 
ress,  as  surely  as  the  Pilgrim  embarkation  at 
Delfshaven  has  a  relation  to  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  and  to  the  civil  rights  bill  giving 
the  colored  man  permission  to  ride  in  a  pub 
lic  conveyance  and  to  be  buried  in  a  public 
cemetery,  so  surely  has  the  Parthenon  some 
connection  with  your  new  State  capitol  at 
Albany,  and  the  daily  life  of  the  vine-dresser 
of  the  Peloponnesus  some  lesson  for  the 
American  day -laborer.  The  scholar  is  said 
to  be  the  torch  -  bearer,  transmitting  the  in 
creasing  light  from  generation  to  generation, 
so  that  the  feet  of  all,  the  humblest  and  the 
lowliest,  may  walk  in  the  radiance  and  not 
stumble.  But  he  very  often  carries  a  dark 
lantern. 

Not  what  is  the  use  of  Greek,  of  any  cult 
ure  in  art  or  literature,  but  what  is  the  good 
to  me  of  your  knowing  Greek,  is  the  latest 
question  of  the  ditch-digger  to  the  scholar — 
what  better  off  am  I  for  your  learning?  And 
the  question,  in  view  of  the  inter-dependence 
of  all  members  of  society,  is  one  that  cannot 
be  put  away  as  idle.  One  reason  why  the 
scholar  does  not  make  the  world  of  the  past, 


116  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

the  world  of  books,  real  to  his  fellows  and 
serviceable  to  them,  is  that  it  is  not  real  to 
himself,  but  a  mere  unsubstantial  place  of 
intellectual  idleness,  where  he  dallies  some 
years  before  he  begins  his  task  in  life.  And 
another  reason  is  that,  while  it  may  be  real 
to  him,  while  he  is  actually  cultured  and 
trained,  he  fails  to  see  or  to  feel  that  his  cult 
ure  is  not  a  thing  apart,  and  that  all  the 
world  has  a  right  to  share  its  blessed  influ 
ence.  Failing  to  see  this,  he  is  isolated,  and, 
wanting  his  sympathy,  the  untutored  world 
mocks  at  his  superfineness  and  takes  its  own 
rough  way  to  rougher  ends.  Greek  art  was 
for  the  people,  Greek  poetry  was  for  the  peo 
ple;  Raphael  painted  his  immortal  frescoes 
where  throngs  could  be  lifted  in  thought  and 
feeling  by  them ;  Michael  Angelo  hung  the 
dome  over  St.  Peter's  so  that  the  far-off  peas 
ant  on  the  Campagna  could  see  it,  and  the 
maiden  kneeling  by  the  shrine  in  the  Alban 
hills.  Do  we  often  stop  to  think  what  influ 
ence,  direct  or  other,  the  scholar,  the  man  of 
high  culture,  has  to-day  upon  the  great  mass 
of  our  people  ?  Why  do  they  ask,  what  is  the 
use  of  your  learning  and  your  art  ? 

The  artist,  in  the  retirement  of  his  studio, 
finishes  a  charming,  suggestive,  historical  pict- 


WHAT   IS    YOUK    CULTURE    TO   ME?  117 

ure.  The  rich  man  buys  it  and  hangs  it  in 
his  library,  where  the  privileged  few  can  see 
it.  I  do  not  deny  that  the  average  rich  man 
needs  all  the  refining  influence  the  picture 
can  exert  on  him,  and  that  the  picture  is  do 
ing  missionary  work  in  his  house ;  but  it  is 
nevertheless  an  example  of  an  educating  in 
fluence  withdrawn  and  appropriated  to  nar 
row  uses.  But  the  engraver  comes,  and,  by 
his  mediating  art,  transfers  it  to  a  thousand 
sheets,  and  scatters  its  sweet  influence  far 
abroad.  All  the  world,  in  its  toil,  its  hunger, 
its  sordidness,  pauses  a  moment  to  look  on 
it  —  that  gray  sea -coast,  the  receding  May 
flower,  the  two  young  Pilgrims  in  the  fore 
ground  regarding  it,  with  tender  thoughts  of 
the  far  home — all  the  world  looks  on  it  per 
haps  for  a  moment  thoughtfully,  perhaps  tear 
fully,  and  is  touched  with  the  sentiment  of  it, 
is  kindled  into  a  glow  of  nobleness  by  the 
sight  of  that  faith  and  love  and  resolute  de 
votion  which  have  tinged  our  early  history 
with  the  faint  light  of  romance.  So  art  is  no 
longer  the  enjoyment  of  the  few,  but  the  help 
and  solace  of  the  many. 

The  scholar  who  is  cultured  by  books,  re 
flection,  travel,  by  a  refined  society,  consorts 
with  his  kind,  and  more  and  more  removes 


118  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

himself  from  the  sympathies  of  common  life. 
I  know  how  almost  inevitable  this  is,  how  al 
most  impossible  it  is  to  resist  the  segregation 
of  classes  according  to  the  affinities  of  taste. 
But  by  what  mediation  shall  the  culture  that 
is  now  the  possession  of  the  few  be  made  to 
leaven  the  world  and  to  elevate  and  sweeten 
ordinary  life  ?  By  books  ?  Yes.  By  the  news 
paper?  Yes.  By  the  diffusion  of  works  of 
art  ?  Yes.  But  when  all  is  done  that  can  be 
done  by  such  letters-missive  from  one  class 
to  another,  there  remains  the  need  of  more 
personal  contact,  of  a  human  sympathy,  dif 
fused  and  living.  The  world  has  had  enough 
of  charities.  It  wants  respect  and  consideration. 
We  desire  no  longer  to  be  legislated  for,  it 
says ;  we  want  to  be  legislated  with.  Why  do 
you  never  come  to  see  me  but  you  bring  me 
something?  asks  the  sensitive  and  poor  seam 
stress.  Do  you  always  give  some  charity  to 
your  friends  ?  I  want  companionship,  and  not 
cold  pieces ;  I  want  to  be  treated  like  a  human 
being  who  has  nerves  and  feelings,  and  tears 
too,  and  as  much  interest  in  the  sunset,  and  in 
the  birth  of  Christ,  perhaps,  as  you.  And  the 
mass  of  uncared-for  ignorance  and  brutality, 
finding  a  voice  at  length,  bitterly  repels  the 
condescensions  of  charity ;  you  have  your  cult- 


WHAT   IS   YOUR   CULTURE    TO    ME?  119 

ure,  your  libraries,  your  fine  houses,  your 
church,  your  religion,  and  your  God,  too ;  let  us 
alone,  we  want  none  of  them.  In  the  bear-pit 
at  Berne,  the  occupants,  who  are  the  wards  of 
the  city,  have  had  meat  thrown  to  them  daily 
for  I  know  not  how  long,  but  they  are  not 
tamed  by  this  charity,  and  would  probably  eat 
up  any  careless  person  who  fell  into  their 
clutches,  without  apology. 

Do  not  impute  to  me  quixotic  notions  with 
regard  to  the  duties  of  men  and  women  of 
culture,  or  think  that  I  undervalue  the  diffi 
culties  in  the  way,  the  fastidiousness  on  the 
one  side,  or  the  jealousies  on  the  other.  It 
is  by  no  means  easy  to  an  active  participant 
to  define  the  drift  of  his  own  age;  but  I  seem 
to  see  plainly  that  unless  the  culture  of  the 
age  finds  means  to  diffuse  itself,  working 
downward  and  reconciling  antagonisms  by  a 
commonness  of  thought  and  feeling  and  aim 
in  life,  society  must  more  and  more  separate 
itself  into  jarring  classes,  with  mutual  misun 
derstandings  and  hatred  and  w^ar.  To  suggest 
remedies  is  much  more  difficult  than  to  see 
evils ;  but  the  comprehension  of  dangers  is  the 
first  step  towards  mastering  them.  The  prob 
lem  of  our  own  time — the  reconciliation  of  the 
interests  of  classes — is  as  yet  very  illy  defined. 


120  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

This  great  movement  of  labor,  for  instance, 
does  not  know  definitely  what  it  wants,  and 
those  who  are  spectators  do  not  know  what 
their  relations  are  to  it.  The  first  thing  to  be 
done  is  for  them  to  try  to  understand  each 
other.  One  class  sees  that  the  other  has  light 
er  or  at  least  different  labor,  opportunities  of 
travel,  a  more  liberal  supply  of  the  luxuries  of 
life,  a  higher  enjoyment  and  a  keener  relish 
of  the  beautiful,  the  immaterial.  Looking  only 
at  external  conditions,  it  concludes  that  all  it 
needs  to  come  into  this  better  place  is  wealth, 
and  so  it  organizes  war  upon  the  rich,  and  it 
makes  demands  of  freedom  from  toil  and  of 
compensation  which  it  is  in  no  man's  power  to 
give  it,  and  which  would  not,  if  granted  over 
and  over  again,  lift  it  into  that  condition  it 
desires.  It  is  a  tale  in  the  Gulistan,  that  a 
king  placed  his  son  with  a  preceptor,  and  said, 
"  This  is  your  son ;  educate  him  in  the  same 
manner  as  your  own."  The  preceptor  took 
pains  with  him  for  a  year,  but  without  success, 
whilst  his  own  sons  were  completed  in  learn 
ing  and  accomplishments.  The  king  reproved 
the  preceptor,  and  said,  "  You  have  broken 
your  promise,  and  not  acted  faithfully."  He 
replied,  "O  king,  the  education  was  the  same, 
but  the  capacities  are  different.  Although 


WHAT   IS  YOUK   CULTURE   TO   ME?  121 

silver  and  gold  are  produced  from  a  stone,  yet 
these  metals  are  not  to  be  found  in  every 
stone.  The  star  Canopus  shines  all  over  the 
world,  but  the  scented  leather  comes  only  from 
Yemen."  "  'Tis  an  absolute,  and,  as  it  were, 
a  divine  perfection,"  says  Montaigne,  "for 
a  man  to  know  how  loyally  to  enjoy  his  being. 
We  seek  other  conditions,  by  reason  we  do  not 
understand  the  use  of  our  own ;  and  go  out  of 
ourselves,  because  we  know  not  how  there  to 
reside." 

But  nevertheless  it  becomes  a  necessity  for 
us  to  understand  the  wishes  of  those  who 
demand  a  change  of  condition,  and  it  is  nec 
essary  that  they  should  understand  the  com 
pensations  as  well  as  the  limitations  of  every 
condition.  The  dervish  congratulated  himself 
that  although  the  only  monument  of  his  grave 
would  be  a  brick,  he  should  at  the  last  day 
arrive  at  and  enter  the  gate  of  Paradise 
before  the  king  had  got  from  under  the  heavy 
stones  of  his  costly  tomb.  Nothing  will  bring 
us  into  this  desirable  mutual  understanding 
except  sympathy  and  personal  contact.  Laws 
will  not  do  it ;  institutions  of  charity  and  relief 
will  not  do  it. 

We  must  believe,  for  one  thing,  that  the 
graces  of  culture  will  not  be  thrown  away  if 


122  RELATION   OF  LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

exercised  among  the  humblest  and  the  least 
cultured;  it  is  found  out  that  flowers  are 
often  more  welcome  in  the  squalid  tenement- 
houses  of  Boston  than  loaves  of  bread.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  exactly  how  culture  can  extend 
its  influence  into  places  uncongenial  and  to 
people  indifferent  to  it,  but  I  will  try  and 
illustrate  what  I  mean  by  an  example  or  two. 
Criminals  in  this  country,  when  the  law 
took  hold  of  them,  used  to  be  turned  over  to 
the  care  of  men  who  often  had  more  sympathy 
with  the  crime  than  with  the  criminal,  or  at 
least  to  those  who  were  almost  as  coarse  in 
feeling  and  as  brutal  in  speech  as  their  charges. 
There  have  been  some  changes  of  late  years  in 
the  care  of  criminals,  but  does  public  opinion 
yet  everywhere  demand  that  jailers  and  prison- 
keepers  and  executioners  of  the  penal  law  should 
be  men  of  refinement,  of  high  character,  of  any 
degree  of  culture  ?  I  do  not  know  any  class 
more  needing  the  best  direct  personal  influence 
of  the  best  civilization  than  the  criminal.  The 
problem  of  its  proper  treatment  and  reforma 
tion  is  one  of  the  most  pressing,  and  it  needs 
practically  the  aid  of  our  best  men  and  women. 
I  should  have  great  hope  of  any  prison  estab 
lishment  at  the  head  of  which  was  a  gentleman 
of  fine  education,  the  purest  tastes,  the  most 


WHAT    IS    YOUK   CULTUKE    TO   ME?  123 

elevated  morality  and  lively  sympathy  with 
men  as  such,  provided  he  had  also  will  and  the 
power  of  command.  I  do  not  know  what  might 
not  be  done  for  the  viciously  inclined  and  the 
transgressors,  if  they  could  come  under  the  in 
fluence  of  refined  men  and  women.  And  yet 
you  know  that  a  boy  or  a  girl  may  be  arrest 
ed  for  crime,  and  pass  from  officer  to  keeper, 
and  jailer  to  warden,  and  spend  years  in  a 
career  of  vice  and  imprisonment,  and  never 
once  see  any  man  or  woman,  officially,  who 
has  tastes,  or  sympathies,  or  aspirations  much 
above  that  vulgar  level  whence  the  criminals 
came.  Anybody  who  is  honest  and  vigilant  is 
considered  good  enough  to  take  charge  of 
prison  birds. 

The  age  is  merciful  and  abounds  in  chari 
ties — houses  of  refuge  for  poor  women,  soci 
eties  for  the  conservation  of  the  exposed  and 
the  reclamation  of  the  lost.  It  is  willing  to 
pay  liberally  for  their  support,  and  to  hire 
ministers  and  distributors  of  its  benefactions. 
But  it  is  beginning  to  see  that  it  cannot  hire 
the  distribution  of  love,  nor  buy  brotherly 
feeling.  The  most  encouraging  thing  I  have 
seen  lately  is  an  experiment  in  one  of  our  cit 
ies.  In  the  thick  of  the  town  the  ladies  of 
the  city  have  furnished  and  opened  a  reading- 


124  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

room,  sewing  -  room,  conversation  -  room,  or 
what  not,  where  young  girls,  who  work  for  a 
living  and  have  no  opportunity  for  any  cult 
ure,  at  home  or  elsewhere,  may  spend  their 
evenings.  They  meet  there  always  some  of 
the  ladies  I  have  spoken  of,  whose  unosten 
tatious  duty  and  pleasure  it  is  to  pass  the 
evening  with  them,  in  reading  or  music  or 
the  use  of  the  needle,  and  the  exchange  of 
the  courtesies  of  life  in  conversation.  What 
ever  grace  and  kindness  and  refinement  of 
manner  they  carry  there,  I  do  not  suppose 
are  wasted.  These  are  some  of  the  ways  in 
which  culture  can  serve  men.  And  I  take 
it  that  one  of  the  chief  evidences  of  our  prog 
ress  in  this  century  is  the  recognition  of  the 
truth  that  there  is  no  selfishness  so  supreme 
— not  even  that  in  the  possession  of  wealth — 
as  that  which  retires  into  itself  with  all  the 
accomplishments  of  liberal  learning  and  rare 
opportunities,  and  looks  upon  the  intellectual 
poverty  of  the  world  without  a  wish  to  relieve 
it.  "  As  often  as  I  have  been  among  men," 
says  Seneca,  "  I  have  returned  less  a  man." 
And  Thomas  a  Kempis  declared  that  "the 
greatest  saints  avoided  the  company  of  men 
as  much  as  they  could,  and  chose  to  live  to 
God  in  secret."  The  Christian  philosophy 


WHAT   IS    YOUK   CULTURE    TO    ME?  123 

was  no  improvement  upon  the  pagan  in  this 
respect,  and  was  exactly  at  variance  with  the 
teaching  and  practice  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

The  American  scholar  cannot  afford  to 
live  for  himself,  nor  merely  for  scholarship 
and  the  delights  of  learning.  He  must  make 
himself  more  felt  in  the  material  life  of  this 
country.  I  am  aware  that  it  is  said  that  the 
culture  of  the  age  is  itself  materialistic,  and 
that  its  refinements  are  sensual ;  that  there  is 
little  to  choose  between  the  coarse  excesses 
of  poverty  and  the  polished  and  more  deco 
rous  animality  of  the  more  fortunate.  With 
out  entering  directly  upon  the  consideration 
of  this  much-talked-of  tendency,  I  should  like 
to  notice  the  influence  upon  our  present  and 
probable  future  of  the  bounty,  fertility,  and 
extraordinary  opportunities  of  this  still  new 
land. 

The  American  grows  and  develops  himself 
with  few  restraints.  Foreigners  used  to  de 
scribe  him  as  a  lean,  hungry,  nervous  animal, 
gaunt,  inquisitive,  inventive,  restless,  and  cer 
tain  to  shrivel  into  physical  inferiority  in 
his  dry  and  highly  oxygenated  atmosphere. 
The  apprehension  is  not  well  founded.  It  is 
quieted  by  his  achievements  the  continent 
over,  his  virile  enterprises,  his  endurance  in 


126  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

war  and  in  the  most  difficult  explorations,  his 
resistance  of  the  influence  of  great  cities  tow 
ards  effeminacy  and  loss  of  physical  vigor. 
If  ever  man  took  large  and  eager  hold  of 
earthly  things  and  appropriated  them  to  his 
own  use,  it  is  the  American.  We  are  gross 
eaters,  we  are  great  drinkers.  We  shall  ex 
cel  the  English  when  we  have  as  long  prac 
tice  as  they.  I  am  filled  with  a  kind  of 
dismay  when  I  see  the  great  stock-yards  of 
Chicago  and  Cincinnati,  through  which  flow 
the  vast  herds  and  droves  of  the  prairies, 
marching  straight  down  the  throats  of  Eastern 
people.  Thousands  are  always  sowing  and 
reaping  and  brewing  and  distilling,  to  slake 
the  immortal  thirst  of  the  country.  We  take, 
indeed,  strong  hold  of  the  earth ;  we  absorb 
its  fatness.  When  Leicester  entertained  Eliz 
abeth  at  Kenilworth,  the  clock  in  the  great 
tower  was  set  perpetually  at  twelve,  the  hour 
of  feasting.  It  is  always  dinner  -  time  in 
America.  I  do  not  know  how  much  land  it 
takes  to  raise  an  average  citizen,  but  I  should 
say  a  quarter  section.  He  spreads  himself 
abroad,  he  riots  in  abundance;  above  all 
things  he  must  have  profusion,  and  he  wants 
things  that  are  solid  and  strong. 

On  the  Sorrentine  promontory,  and  on  the 


WHAT   IS   YOUR  CULTURE  TO   ME?  127 

island  of  Capri,  the  hardy  husbandman  and 
fisherman  draws  his  subsistence  from  the  sea 
and  from  a  scant  patch  of  ground.  One  may 
feast  on  a  fish  and  a  handful  of  olives.  The 
dinner  of  the  laborer  is  a  dish  of  polenta,  a 
few  figs,  some  cheese,  a  glass  of  thin  wine. 
His  wants  are  few  and  easily  supplied.  He  is 
not  overfed,  his  diet  is  not  stimulating;  I 
should  say  that  he  would  pay  little  to  the 
physician,  that  familiar  of  other  countries 
whose  family  office  is  to  counteract  the  effects 
of  over-eating.  He  is  temperate,  frugal,  con 
tent,  and  apparently  draws  not  more  of  his 
life  from  the  earth  or  the  sea  than  from  the 
genial  sky.  He  would  never  build  a  Pacific 
Railway,  nor  write  a  hundred  volumes  of  com 
mentary  on  the  Scriptures ;  but  he  is  an  exam 
ple  of  how  little  a  man  actually  needs  of  the 
gross  products  of  the  earth. 

I  suppose  that  life  w^as  never  fuller  in  cer 
tain  ways  than  it  is  here  in  America.  If  a 
civilization  is  judged  by  its  wants,  we  are  cer 
tainly  highly  civilized.  We  cannot  get  land 
enough,  nor  clothes  enough,  nor  houses  enough, 
nor  food  enough.  A  Bedouin  tribe  would 
fare  sumptuously  on  what  one  American  fam 
ily  consumes  and  wastes.  The  revenue  re 
quired  for  the  wardrobe  of  one  woman  of  fash- 


128  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

ion  would  suffice  to  convert  the  inhabitants  of 
I  know  not  how  many  square  miles  in  Africa. 
It  absorbs  the  income  of  a  province  to  bring 
up  a  baby.  "We  riot  in  prodigality,  we  vie 
with  each  other  in  material  accumulation  and 
expense.  Our  thoughts  are  mainly  on  how  to 
increase  the  products  of  the  world,  and  get 
them  into  our  own  possession. 

I  think  this  gross  material  tendency  is 
strong  in  America,  and  more  likely  to  get  the 
mastery  over  the  spiritual  and  the  intellectual 
here  than  elsewhere,  because  of  our  exhaust- 
less  resources.  Let  us  not  mistake  the  nature 
of  a  real  civilization,  nor  suppose  we  have  it 
because  we  can  convert  crude  iron  into  the 
most  delicate  mechanism,  or  transport  our 
selves  sixty  miles  an  hour,  or  even  if  we  shall 
refine  our  carnal  tastes  so  as  to  be  satisfied  at 
dinner  with  the  tongues  of  ortolans  and  the 
breasts  of  singing-birds. 

Plato  banished  the  musicians  from  his  feasts 
because  he  would  not  have  the  charms  of  con 
versation  interfered  with.  By  comparison, 
music  was  to  him  a  sensuous  enjoyment.  In 
any  society  the  ideal  must  be  the  banishment 
of  the  more  sensuous;  the  refinement  of  it 
will  only  repeat  the  continued  experiment  of 
history — the  end  of  a  civilization  in  a  polished 


WHAT   IS   YOUK    CULTURE   TO   ME?  129 

materialism,  and  its  speedy  fall  from  that  into 
grossness. 

I  am  sure  that  the  scholar,  trained  to 
"  plain  living  and  high  thinking,"  knows  that 
the  prosperous  life  consists  in  the  culture  of 
the  man,  and  not  in  the  refinement  and  accu 
mulation  of  the  material.  The  word  culture 
is  often  used  to  signify  that  dainty  intellectu- 
alism  which  is  merely  a  sensuous  pampering  of 
the  mind,  as  distinguishable  from  the  healthy 
training  of  the  mind  as  is  the  education  of  the 
body  in  athletic  exercises  from  the  petting  of 
it  by  luxurious  baths  and  unguents.  Culture  is 
the  blossom  of  knowledge,  but  it  is  a  fruit 
blossom,  the  ornament  of  the  age  but  the  seed 
of  the  future.  The  so-called  culture,  a  mere 
fastidiousness  of  taste,  is  a  barren  flower. 

You  would  expect  spurious  culture  to  stand 
aloof  from  common  life,  as  it  does,  to  extend 
its  charities  at  the  end  of  a  pole,  to  make  of 
religion  a  mere  cultus,  to  construct  for  its 
heaven  a  sort  of  Paris,  where  all  the  inhabi 
tants  dress  becomingly,  and  where  there  are 
no  Communists.  Culture,  like  fine  manners, 
is  not  always  the  result  of  wealth  or  position. 
"When  monseigneur  the  archbishop  makes  his 
rare  tour  through  the  Swiss  mountains,  the 
simple  peasants  do  not  crowd  upon  him 


130  RELATION   OF   UTEKATUKE  TO 

with  boorish  impudence,  but  strew  his  stony 
path  with  flowers,  and  receive  him  with  joy 
ous  but  modest  sincerity.  When  the  Russian 
prince  made  his  landing  in  America  the  de 
termined  staring  of  a  bevy  of  accomplished 
American  women  nearly  swept  the  young 
man  off  the  deck  of  the  vessel.  One  cannot 
but  respect  that  tremulous  sensitiveness  which 
caused  the  maiden  lady  to  shrink  from  staring 
at  the  moon  when  she  heard  there  was  a  man 
in  it. 

The  materialistic  drift  of  this  age — that  is, 
its  devotion  to  material  development — is  fre 
quently  deplored.  I  suppose  it  is  like  all 
other  ages  in  that  respect,  but  there  appears 
to  be  a  more  determined  demand  for  change 
of  condition  than  ever  before,  and  a  deeper 
movement  for  equalization.  Here  in  America 
this  is,  in  great  part,  a  movement  for  merely 
physical  or  material  equalization.  The  idea 
seems  to  be  wellnigh  universal  that  the  millen 
nium  is  to  come  by  a  great  deal  less  work  and 
a  great  deal  more  pay.  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  millennium  is  to  come  by  an  infusion  into 
all  society  of  a  truer  culture,  which  is  neither 
of  poverty  nor  of  wealth,  but  is  the  beautiful 
fruit  of  the  development  of  the  higher  part  of 
man's  nature. 


"WHAT  IS   YOUK   CULTURE   TO   ME?  131 

And  the  thought  I  wish  to  leave  with  you, 
as  scholars  and  men  who  can  command  the 
best  culture,  is  that  it  is  all  needed  to  shape  and 
control  the  strong  growth  of  material  develop 
ment  here,  to  guide  the  blind  instincts  of  the 
mass  of  men  who  are  struggling  for  a  freer 
place  and  a  breath  of  fresh  air  •  that  you  can 
not  stand  aloof  in  a  class  isolation ;  that  your 
power  is  in  a  personal  sympathy  with  the  hu 
manity  which  is  ignorant  but  discontented ; 
and  that  the  question  which  the  man  with  the 
spade  asks  about  the  use  of  your  culture  to 
him  is  a  menace. 

(1872.) 


MODEEN  FICTION 


MODERN  FICTION 

ONE  of  the  worst  characteristics  of  modern 
fiction  is  its  so-called  truth  to  nature.  For 
fiction  is  an  art,  as  painting  is,  as  sculpture  is, 
as  acting  is.  A  photograph  of  a  natural  object 
is  not  art ;  nor  is  the  plaster  cast  of  a  man's 
face,  nor  is  the  bare  setting  on  the  stage  of  an 
actual  occurrence.  Art  requires  an  idealiza 
tion  of  nature.  The  amateur,  though  she  may 
be  a  lady,  who  attempts  to  represent  upon  the 
stage  the  lady  of  the  drawing-room,  usually 
fails  to  convey  to  the  spectators  the  impression 
of  a  lady.  She  lacks  the  art  by  which  the 
trained  actress,  who  may  not  be  a  lady,  suc 
ceeds.  The  actual  transfer  to  the  stage  of  the 
drawing-room  and  its  occupants,  with  the  be 
havior  common  in  well-bred  society,  would  no 
doubt  fail  of  the  intended  dramatic  effect,  and 
the  spectators  would  declare  the  representa 
tion  unnatural. 

However  our  jargon  of  criticism  may  con 
found  terms,  we  do  not  need  to  be 


136  RELATION   OF    LITEKATURE   TO    LIFE 

that  art  and  nature  are  distinct;  that  art, 
though  dependent  on  nature,  is  a  separate 
creation ;  that  art  is  selection  and  idealization, 
with  a  view  to  impressing  the  mind  with 
human,  or  even  higher  than  human,  senti 
ments  and  ideas.  We  may  not  agree  whether 
the  perfect  man  and  woman  ever  existed,  but 
we  do  know  that  the  highest  representations 
of  them  in  form — that  in  the  old  Greek  sculpt 
ures — were  the  result  of  artistic  selection  of 
parts  of  many  living  figures. 

When  we  praise  our  recent  fiction  for  its 
photographic  fidelity  to  nature  we  condemn 
it,  for  we  deny  to  it  the  art  which  would  give 
it  value.  We  forget  that  the  creation  of  the 
novel  should  be,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  syn 
thetic  process,  and  impart  to  human  actions 
that  ideal  quality  which  we  demand  in  paint 
ing.  Heine  regards  Cervantes  as  the  origi 
nator  of  the  modern  novel.  The  older  novels 
sprang  from  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages ; 
their  themes  were  knightly  adventure,  their 
personages  were  the  nobility ;  the  common  peo 
ple  did  not  figure  in  them.  These  romances, 
which  had  degenerated  into  absurdities,  Cer 
vantes  overthrew  by  Don  Quixote.  But  in  put 
ting  an  end  to  the  old  romances  he  created 
a  new  school  of  fiction,  called  the  modern 


MODERN    FICTION  137 

novel,  by  introducing  into  his  romance  of 
pseudo-knighthood  a  faithful  description  of 
the  lower  classes,  and  intermingling  the  phases 
of  popular  life.  But  he  had  no  one-sided  ten 
dency  to  portray  the  vulgar  only ;  he  brought 
together  the  higher  and  the  lower  in  society, 
to  serve  as  light  and  shade,  and  the  aristo 
cratic  element  was  as  prominent  as  the  popu 
lar.  This  noble  and  chivalrous  element  dis 
appears  in  the  novels  of  the  English  who  imi 
tated  Cervantes.  "  These  English  novelists 
since  Eichardson's  reign,"  says  Heine,  "are 
prosaic  natures  ;  to  the  prudish  spirit  of  their 
time  even  pithy  descriptions  of  the  life  of  the 
common  people  are  repugnant,  and  we  see  on 
yonder  side  of  the  Channel  those  bourgeoisie 
novels  arise,  wherein  the  petty  humdrum  life 
of  the  middle  classes  is  depicted."  But  Scott 
appeared,  and  effected  a  restoration  of  the 
balance  in  fiction.  As  Cervantes  had  intro 
duced  the  democratic  element  into  romances, 
so  Scott  replaced  the  aristocratic  element, 
when  it  had  disappeared,  and  only  a  prosaic, 
bourgeoisie  fiction  existed.  He  restored  to 
romances  the  symmetry  which  we  admire  in 
Don  Quixote.  The  characteristic  feature  of 
Scott's  historical  romances,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  great  German  critic,  is  the  harmony  be- 


138  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

tween  the  aristocratic    and  democratic  ele 
ments. 

This  is  true,  but  is  it  the  last  analysis  of  the 
subject?  Is  it  a  sufficient  account  of  the 
genius  of  Cervantes  and  Scott  that  they  com 
bined  in  their  romances  a  representation  of 
the  higher  and  lower  classes?  Is  it  not  of 
more  importance  how  they  represented  them  ? 
It  is  only  a  part  of  the  achievement  of  Cer 
vantes  that  he  introduced  the  common  people 
into  fiction ;  it  is  his  higher  glory  that  he 
idealized  this  material;  and  it  is  Scott's  dis 
tinction  also  that  he  elevated  into  artistic 
creations  both  nobility  and  commonalty.  In 
short,  the  essential  of  fiction  is  not  diversity 
of  social  life,  but  artistic  treatment  of  what 
ever  is  depicted.  The  novel  may  deal  wholly 
with  an  aristocracy,  or  wholly  with  another 
class,  but  it  must  idealize  the  nature  it  touches 
into  art.  The  fault  of  the  'bourgeoisie  novels, 
of  which  Heine  complains,  is  not  that  they 
treated  of  one  class  only,  and  excluded  a 
higher  social  range,  but  that  they  treated  it 
without  art  and  without  ideality.  In  nature 
there  is  nothing  vulgar  to  the  poet,  and  in 
human  life  there  is  nothing  uninteresting  to 
the  artist ;  but  nature  and  human  life,  for  the 
purposes  of  fiction,  need  a  creative  genius. 


MODERN    FICTION  139 

The  importation  into  the  novel  of  the  vulgar, 
sordid,  and  ignoble  in  life  is  always  unbear 
able,  unless  genius  first  fuses  the  raw  material 
in  its  alembic. 

When,  therefore,  we  say  that  one  of  the 
worst  characteristics  of  modern  fiction  is  its 
so-called  truth  to  nature,  we  mean  that  it  dis 
regards  the  higher  laws  of  art,  and  attempts 
to  give  us  unidealized  pictures  of  life.  The 
failure  is  not  that  vulgar  themes  are  treated, 
but  that  the  treatment  is  vulgar;  not  that 
common  life  is  treated,  but  that  the  treatment 
is  common ;  not  that  care  is  taken  with  details, 
but  that  no  selection  is  made,  and  everything 
is  photographed  regardless  of  its  artistic  value. 
I  am  sure  that  no  one  ever  felt  any  repug 
nance  on  being  introduced  by  Cervantes  to 
the  muleteers,  contrabandistas,  servants  and 
serving-maids,  and  idle  vagabonds  of  Spain,  any 
more  than  to  an  acquaintance  with  the  beggar- 
boys  and  street  gamins  on  the  canvases  of 
Murillo.  And  I  believe  that  the  philosophic 
reason  of  the  disgust  of  Heine  and  of  every 
critic  with  the  English  bourgeoisie  novels, 
describing  the  petty,  humdrum  life  of  the 
middle  classes,  was  simply  the  want  of  art  in 
the  writers ;  the  failure  on  their  part  to  see 
that  a  literal  transcript  of  nature  is  poor  stuff 


140  EELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

in  literature.  We  do  not  need  to  go  back  to 
Richardson's  time  for  illustrations  of  that 
truth.  Every  week  the  English  press — which 
is  even  a  greater  sinner  in  this  respect  than 
the  American — turns  out  a  score  of  novels 
which  are  mediocre,  not  from  their  subjects, 
but  from  their  utter  lack  of  the  artistic  qual 
ity.  It  matters  not  whether  they  treat  of 
middle-class  life,  of  low,  slum  life,  or  of  draw 
ing-room  life  and  lords  and  ladies ;  they  are 
equally  flat  and  dreary.  Perhaps  the  most 
inane  thing  ever  put  forth  in  the  name  of  lit 
erature  is  the  so-called  domestic  novel,  an  in 
digestible,  culinary  sort  of  product,  that  might 
be  named  the  doughnut  of  fiction.  The  usual 
apology  for  it  is  that  it  depicts  family  life  with 
fidelity.  Its  characters  are  supposed  to  act 
and  talk  as  people  act  and  talk  at  home  and 
in  society.  I  trust  this  is  a  libel,  but,  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument,  suppose  they  do.  "Was 
ever  produced  so  insipid  a  result  ?  They  are 
called  moral ;  in  the  higher  sense  they  are  im 
moral,  for  they  tend  to  lower  the  moral  tone 
and  stamina  of  every  reader.  It  needs  genius 
to  import  into  literature  ordinary  conversa 
tion,  petty  domestic  details,  and  the  common 
place  and  vulgar  phases  of  life.  A  report  of 
ordinary  talk,  which  appears  as  dialogue  in 


MODERN    FICTION  141 

domestic  novels,  may  be  true  to  nature ;  if  it 
is,  it  is  not  worth  writing  or  worth  reading. 
I  cannot  see  that  it  serves  any  good  purpose 
whatever.  Fortunately,  we  have  in  our  day 
illustrations  of  a  different  treatment  of  the 
vulgar.  I  do  not  know  any  more  truly  real 
istic  pictures  of  certain  aspects  of  New  Eng 
land  life  than  are  to  be  found  in  Judd's  Mar 
garet,  wherein  are  depicted  exceedingly  pinched 
and  ignoble  social  conditions.  Yet  the  char 
acters  and  th  e  life  are  drawn  with  the  artistic 
purity  of  Flaxman's  illustrations  of  Homer. 
Another  example  is  Thomas  Hardy's  Far  from 
the  Madding  Crowd.  Every  character  in  it  is 
of  the  lower  class  in  England.  But  what  an 
exquisite  creation  it  is!  You  have  to  turn 
back  to  Shakespeare  for  any  talk  of  peasants 
and  clowns  and  shepherds  to  compare  with 
the  conversations  in  this  novel,  so  racy  are  they 
of  the  soil,  and  yet  so  touched  with  the  finest 
art,  the  enduring  art.  Here  is  not  the  realism 
of  the  photograph,  but  of  the  artist ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  nature  idealized. 

When  we  criticise  our  recent  fiction,  it  is 
obvious  that  we  ought  to  remember  that  it 
only  conforms  to  the  tendencies  of  our  social 
life,  our  prevailing  ethics,  and  to  the  art  con 
ditions  of  our  time.  Literature  is  never  in 


142  KELATION    OF    LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

any  age  an  isolated  product.  It  is  closely  re 
lated  to  the  development  or  retrogression  of 
the  time  in  all  departments  of  life.  The  lit 
erary  production  of  our  day  seems,  and  no 
doubt  is,  more  various  than  that  of  any  other, 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  fix  upon  its  leading  ten 
dency.  It  is  claimed  for  its  fiction,  however, 
that  it  is  analytic  and  realistic,  and  that  much 
of  it  has  certain  other  qualities  that  make  it  a 
new  school  in  art.  These  aspects  of  it  I  wish 
to  consider  in  this  paper. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  touch  upon  our  re 
cent  fiction,  any  more  than  upon  our  recent 
poetry,  without  taking  into  account  what  is 
called  the  ^Esthetic  movement — a  movement 
more  prominent  in  England  than  elsewhere. 
A  slight  contemplation  of  this  reveals  its  re 
semblance  to  the  Romantic  movement  in  Ger 
many,  of  which  the  brothers  Schlegel  were 
apostles,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century. 
The  movements  are  alike  in  this :  that  they 
both  sought  inspiration  in  medievalism,  in 
feudalism,  in  the  symbols  of  a  Christianity 
that  ran  to  mysticism,  in  the  quaint,  strictly 
pre-Raphael  art  which  was  supposed  to  be  the 
result  of  a  simple  faith.  In  the  one  case,  the 
artless  and  childlike  remains  of  old  German 
pictures  and  statuary  were  exhumed  and  set 


MODERN   FICTION  143 

up  as  worthy  of  imitation ;  in  the  other,  we 
have  carried  out  in  art,  in  costume,  and  in  do 
mestic  life,  so  far  as  possible,  what  has  been 
wittily  and  accurately  described  as  "stained- 
glass  attitudes."  With  all  its  peculiar  vaga 
ries,  the  English  school  is  essentially  a  copy 
of  the  German,  in  its  return  to  medievalism. 
The  two  movements  have  a  further  likeness,  in 
that  they  are  found  accompanied  by  a  highly 
symbolized  religious  revival.  English  a3stheti- 
cism  would  probably  disown  any  religious  in 
tention,  although  it  has  been  accused  of  a  re 
fined  interest  in  Pan  and  Yenus ;  but  in  all  its 
feudal  sympathies  it  goes  along  with  the  re 
ligious  art  and  vestment  revival,  the  return  to 
symbolic  ceremonies,  monastic  vigils,  and  sis 
terhoods.  Years  ago,  an  acute  writer  in  the 
Catholic  World  claimed  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 
as  a  Catholic  writer,  from  the  internal  evi 
dence  of  his  poems.  The  German  Romanti 
cism,  which  was  fostered  by  the  Romish  priest 
hood,  ended,  or  its  disciples  ended,  in  the  bos 
om  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  It  will  be 
interesting  to  note  in  what  ritualistic  harbor 
the  restheticism  of  our  day  will  finally  moor. 
That  two  similar  revivals  should  come  so  near 
together  in  time  makes  us  feel  that  the  world 
moves  onward — if  it  does  move  onward — in  cir- 


144  RELATION   OF   LITERATUKE   TO   LIFE 

cular  figures  of  very  short  radii.  There  seems 
to  be  only  one  thing  certain  in  our  Christian 
era,  and  that  is  a  periodic  return  to  classic 
models;  the  only  stable  standards  of  resort 
seem  to  be  Greek  art  and  literature. 

The  characteristics  which  are  prominent, 
when  we  think  of  our  recent  fiction,  are  a 
wholly  unidealized  view  of  human  society, 
which  has  got  the  name  of  realism ;  a  delight 
in  representing  the  worst  phases  of  social  life ; 
an  extreme  analysis  of  persons  and  motives ; 
the  sacrifice  of  action  to  psychological  study ; 
the  substitution  of  studies  of  character  for 
anything  like  a  story ;  a  notion  that  it  is  not 
artistic,  and  that  it  is  untrue  to  nature  to  bring 
any  novel  to  a  definite  consummation,  and 
especially  to  end  it  happily ;  and  a  despondent 
tone  about  society,  politics,  and  the  whole  drift 
of  modern  life.  Judged  by  our  fiction,  we  are 
in  an  irredeemably  bad  way.  There  is  little 
beauty,  joy,  or  light -heartedness  in  living; 
the  spontaneity  and  charm  of  life  are  analyzed 
out  of  existence;  sweet  girls,  made  to  love 
and  be  loved,  are  extinct ;  melancholy  Jaques 
never  meets  a  Eosalind  in  the  forest  of  Arden, 
and  if  he  sees  her  in  the  drawing-room  he 
poisons  his  pleasure  with  the  thought  that 
she  is  scheming  and  artificial;  there  are  no 


MODERN    FICTION  145 

happy  marriages — indeed,  marriage  itself  is 
almost  too  inartistic  to  be  permitted  by  our 
novelists,  unless  it  can  be  supplemented  by  a 
divorce,  and  art  is  supposed  to  deny  any  happy 
consummation  of  true  love.  In  short,  modern 
society  is  going  to  the  dogs,  notwithstanding 
money  is  only  three  and  a  half  per  cent.  It 
is  a  gloomy  business  life,  at  the  best.  Two 
learned  but  despondent  university  professors 
met,  not  long  ago,  at  an  afternoon  "coffee," 
and  drew  sympathetically  together  in  a  corner. 
""What  a  world  this  would  be,"  said  one, 
"  without  coffee !"  "  Yes,"  replied  the  other, 
stirring  the  fragrant  cup  in  a  dejected  aspect 
— "  yes ;  but  what  a  hell  of  a  world  it  is  with 
coffee !" 

The  analytic  method  in  fiction  is  interesting, 
when  used  by  a  master  of  dissection,  but  it  has 
this  fatal  defect  in  a  novel — it  destroys  illu 
sion.  "We  want  to  think  that  the  characters 
in  a  story  are  real  persons.  We  cannot  do 
this  if  we  see  the  author  set  them  up  as  if  they 
were  marionettes,  and  take  them  to  pieces 
every  few  pages,  and  show  their  interior 
structure,  and  the  machinery  by  which  they 
are  moved.  Not  only  is  the  illusion  gone,  but 
the  movement  of  the  story,  if  there  is  a  story, 
is  retarded,  till  the  reader  loses  all  enjoyment 


1!) 


146  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

in  impatience  and  weariness.  You  find  your 
self  saying,  perhaps,  What  a  very  clever  fellow 
the  author  is !  What  an  ingenious  creation 
this  character  is !  How  brightly  the  author 
makes  his  people  talk !  This  is  high  praise, 
but  by  no  means  the  highest,  and  when  we  re 
flect  we  see  how  immeasurably  inferior,  in 
fiction,  the  analytic  method  is  to  the  dramatic. 
In  the  dramatic  method  the  characters  appear, 
and  show  what  they  are  by  what  they  do  and 
say;  the  reader  studies  their  motives,  and  a 
part  of  his  enjoyment  is  in  analyzing  them, 
and  his  vanity  is  flattered  by  the  trust  reposed 
in  his  perspicacity.  We  realize  how  unneces 
sary  minute  analysis  of  character  and  long 
descriptions  are  in  reading  a  drama  by  Shake 
speare,  in  which  the  characters  are  so  vividly 
presented  to  us  in  action  and  speech,  without 
the  least  interference  of  the  author  in  descrip 
tion,  that  we  regard  them  as  persons  with 
whom  we  might  have  real  relations,  and  not 
as  bundles  of  traits  and  qualities.  True,  the 
conditions  of  dramatic  art  and  the  art  of  the 
novel  are  different,  in  that  the  drama  can  dis 
pense  with  delineations,  for  its  characters  are 
intended  to  be  presented  to  the  eye ;  but  all 
the  same,  a  good  drama  will  explain  itself 
without  the  aid  of  actors,  and  there  is  no 


MODERN    FICTION  147 

doubt  that  it  is  the  higher  art  in  the  novel, 
when  once  the  characters  are  introduced,  to 
treat  them  dramatically,  and  let  them  work 
out  their  own  destiny  according  to  their  char 
acters.  It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  when  the 
reader  perceives  that  the  author  can  compel 
his  characters  to  do  what  he  pleases  all  inter 
est  in  them  as  real  persons  is  gone.  In  a  novel 
of  mere  action  and  adventure,  a  lower  order  of 
fiction,  where  all  the  interest  centres  in  the 
unravelling  of  a  plot,  of  course  this  does  not  so 
much  matter. 

Not  long  ago,  in  Edinburgh,  I  amused  my 
self  in  looking  up  some  of  the  localities  made 
famous  in  Scott's  romances,  which  are  as  real 
in  the  mind  as  any  historical  places.  After 
wards  I  read  The  Heart  of  Midlothian.  I  Avas 
surprised  to  find  that,  as  a  work  of  art,  it  was 
inferior  to  my  recollection  of  it.  Its  style  is 
open  to  the  charge  of  prolixity,  and  even  of 
slovenliness  in  some  parts;  and  it  does  not 
move  on  with  increasing  momentum  and  con 
centration  to  a  climax,  as  many  of  Scott's  nov 
els  do ;  the  story  drags  along  in  the  disposi 
tion  of  one  character  after  another.  Yet,  when 
I  had  finished  the  book  and  put  it  away,  a 
singular  thing  happened.  It  suddenly  came 
to  me  that  in  reading-  it  I  had  not  onco 


148  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

thought  of  Scott  as  the  maker ;  it  had  never 
occurred  to  me  that  he  had  created  the  people 
in  whose  fortunes  I  had  been  so  intensely  ab 
sorbed  ;  and  I  never  once  had  felt  how  clever 
the  novelist  was  in  the  naturally  dramatic  dia 
logues  of  the  characters.  In  short,  it  had  not 
entered  my  mind  to  doubt  the  existence  of 
Jeanie  and  Effie  Deans,  and  their  father,  and 
Reuben  Butler,  and  the  others,  who  seem  as 
real  as  historical  persons  in  Scotch  history. 
And  when  I  came  to  think  of  it  afterwards, 
reflecting  upon  the  assumptions  of  the  modern 
realistic  school,  I  found  that  some  scenes,  nota 
bly  the  night  attack  on  the  old  Tolbooth,  were 
as  real  to  me  as  if  I  had  read  them  in  a  police 
report  of  a  newspaper  of  the  day.  Was  Scott, 
then,  only  a  reporter?  Far  from  it,  as  you 
would  speedily  see  if  he  had  thrown  into  the 
novel  a  police  report  of  the  occurrences  at 
the  Tolbooth  before  art  had  shorn  it  of  its 
irrelevancies,  magnified  its  effective  and  salient 
points,  given  events  their  proper  perspective, 
and  the  whole  picture  due  light  and  shade. 

The  sacrifice  of  action  to  some  extent  to 
psychological  evolution  in  modern  fiction  may 
be  an  advance  in  the  art  as  an  intellectual  en» 
tertainment,  if  the  writer  does  not  make  that 
evolution  his  end,  and  does  not  forget  that  the 


MODERN   FICTION  149 

indispensable  thing  in  a  novel  is  the  story. 
The  novel  of  mere  adventure  or  mere  plot,  it 
need  not  be  urged,  is  of  a  lower  order  than 
that  in  which  the  evolution  of  characters  and 
their  interaction  make  the  story.  The  highest 
fiction  is  that  which  embodies  both ;  that  is, 
the  story  in  which  action  is  the  result  of 
mental  and  spiritual  forces  in  play.  And  we 
protest  against  the  notion  that  the  novel  of 
the  future  is  to  be,  or  should  be,  merely  a  study 
of,  or  an  essay  or  a  series  of  analytic  essays 
on,  certain  phases  of  social  life. 

It  is  not  true  that  civilization  or  cultivation 
has  bred  out  of  the  world  the  liking  for  a  story. 
In  this  the  most  highly  educated  Londoner  and 
the  Egyptian  fellah  meet  on  common  human 
ground.  The  passion  for  a  story  has  no  more 
died  out  than  curiosity,  or  than  the  passion  of 
love.  The  truth  is  not  that  stories  are  not 
demanded,  but  that  the  born  raconteur  and 
story-teller  is  a  rare  person.  The  faculty  of 
telling  a  story  is  a  much  rarer  gift  than  the 
ability  to  analyze  character,  and  even  than  the 
ability  truly  to  draw  character.  It  may  be  a 
higher  or  a  lower  power,  but  it  is  rarer.  It  is 
a  natural  gift,  and  it  seems  that  no  amount  of 
culture  can  attain  it,  any  more  than  learning 
can  make  a  poet.  Nor  is  the  complaint  well 


150  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

founded  that  the  stories  have  all  been  told,  the 
possible  plots  all  been  used,  and  the  combina 
tions  of  circumstances  exhausted.  It  is  no 
doubt  our  individual  experience  that  we  hear 
almost  every  day — and  we  hear  nothing  so 
eagerly — some  new  story,  better  or  worse,  but 
new  in  its  exhibition  of  human  character,  and 
in  the  combination  of  events.  And  the  strange, 
eventful  histories  of  human  life  will  no  more 
be  exhausted  than  the  possible  arrangements 
of  mathematical  numbers.  We  might  as  well 
say  that  there  are  no  more  good  pictures  to  be 
painted  as  that  there  are  no  more  good  stories 
to  be  told. 

Equally  baseless  is  the  assumption  that  it  is 
inartistic  and  untrue  to  nature  to  bring  a  novel 
to  a  definite  consummation,  and  especially  to 
end  it  happily.  Life,  we  are  told,  is  full  of  in- 
completion,  of  broken  destinies,  of  failures,  of 
romances  that  begin  but  do  not  end,  of  ambi 
tions  and  purposes  frustrated,  of  love  crossed, 
of  unhappy  issues,  or  a  resultless  play  of  in 
fluences.  Well,  but  life  is  full,  also,  of  endings, 
of  the  results  in  concrete  action  of  character, 
of  completed '  dramas.  And  we  expect  and 
give,  in  the  stories  we  hear  and  tell  in  ordinary 
intercourse,  some  point,  some  outcome,  an  end 
of  some  sort.  If  you  interest  me  in  the  prepara- 


MODERN    FICTION  151 

tions  of  two  persons  who  are  starting  on  a 
journey,  and  expend  all  your  ingenuity  in  de 
scribing  their  outfit  and  their  characters,  and 
do  not  tell  me  where  they  went  or  what  befell 
them  afterwards,  I  do  not  call  that  a  story. 
Nor  am  I  any  better  satisfied  when  you  de 
scribe  two  persons  whom  you  know,  whose 
characters  are  interesting,  and  who  become  in 
volved  in  all  manner  of  entanglements,  and 
then  stop  your  narration ;  and  when  I  ask,  say 
you  have  not  the  least  idea  whether  they  got 
out  of  their  difficulties,  or  what  became  of  them. 
In  real  life  we  do  not  call  that  a  story  where 
everything  is  left  unconcluded  and  in  the  air. 
In  point  of  fact,  romances  are  daily  beginning 
and  daily  ending,  well  or  otherwise,  under  our 
observation. 

Should  they  always  end  well  in  the  novel  ? 
I  am  very  far  from  saying  that.  Tragedy  and 
the  pathos  of  failure  have  their  places  in  liter 
ature  as  well  as  in  life.  I  only  say  that,  artis 
tically,  a  good  ending  is  as  proper  as  a  bad 
ending.  Yet  the  main  object  of  the  novel  is  to 
entertain,  and  the  best  entertainment  is  that 
which  lifts  the  imagination  and  quickens  the 
spirit ;  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  life  by  taking 
us  for  a  time  out  of  our  humdrum  and  perhaps 
sordid  conditions,  so  that  we  can  see  familiar 


152  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

life  somewhat  idealized,  and  probably  see  it  all 
the  more  truly  from  an  artistic  point  of  view. 
For  the  majority  of  the  race,  in  its  hard  lines, 
fiction  is  an  inestimable  boon.  Incidentally 
the  novel  may  teach,  encourage,  refine,  elevate. 
Even  for  these  purposes,  that  novel  is  the  best 
which  shows  us  the  best  possibilities  of  our 
lives — the  novel  which  gives  hope  and  cheer 
instead  of  discouragement  and  gloom.  Famil 
iarity  with  vice  and  sordidness  in  fiction  is  a  low 
entertainment,  and  of  doubtful  moral  value, 
and  their  introduction  is  unbearable  if  it  is  not 
done  with  the  idealizing  touch  of  the  artist. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me  to  mean  that  com 
mon  and  low  life  are  not  fit  subjects  of  fiction, 
or  that  vice  is  not  to  be  lashed  by  the  satirist, 
or  that  the  evils  of  a  social  state  are  never  to 
be  exposed  in  the  novel.  For  this,  also,  is  an 
office  of  the  novel,  as  it  is  of  the  drama,  to  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  nature,  and  to  human  nature 
as  it  exhibits  itself.  But  when  the  mirror 
shows  nothing  but  vice  and  social  disorder, 
leaving  out  the  saving  qualities  that  keep  soci 
ety  on  the  whole,  and  family  life  as  a  rule,  as 
sweet  and  good  as  they  are,  the  mirror  is  not 
held  up  to  nature,  but  more  likely  reflects  a 
morbid  mind.  Still  it  must  be  added  that  the 
study  of  unfortunate  social  conditions  is  a  legit- 


MODEEN    FICTION  153 

imate  one  for  the  author  to  make ;  and  that 
we  may  be  in  no  state  to  judge  justly  of  his 
exposure  while  the  punishment  is  being  in 
flicted,  or  while  the  irritation  is  fresh.  For, 
no  doubt,  the  reader  winces  often  because  the 
novel  reveals  to  himself  certain  possible  base 
ness,  selfishness,  and  meanness.  Of  this,  how 
ever,  I  (speaking  for  myself)  may  be  sure :  that 
the  artist  who  so  represents  vulgar  life  that  I 
am  more  in  love  with  my  kind,  the  satirist  who 
so  depicts  vice  and  villany  that  I  am  strength 
ened  in  my  moral  fibre,  has  vindicated  his 
choice  of  material.  On  the  contrary,  those 
novelists  are  not  justified  whose  forte  it  seems 
to  be  to  so  set  forth  goodness  as  to  make  it  un 
attractive. 

But  we  come  back  to  the  general  proposition 
that  the  indispensable  condition  of  the  novel 
is  that  it  shall  entertain.  And  for  this  purpose 
the  world  is  not  ashamed  to  own  that  it  wants, 
and  always  will  want,  a  story — a  story  that 
has  an  ending ;  and  if  not  a  good  ending,  then 
one  that  in  noble  tragedy  lifts  up  our  nature 
into  a  high  plane  of  sacrifice  and  pathos.  In 
proof  of  this  we  have  only  to  refer  to  the 
masterpieces  of  fiction  which  the  world  cher 
ishes  and  loves  to  recur  to. 

I  confess  that  I  am  harassed  with  the  incom- 


154  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

plete  romances,  that  leave  me,  when  the  book 
is  closed,  as  one  might  be  on  a  waste  plain  at 
midnight,  abandoned  by  his  conductor,  and 
without  a  lantern.  I  am  tired  of  accompany 
ing  people  for  hours  through  disaster  and  per 
plexity  and  misunderstanding,  only  to  see  them 
lost  in  a  thick  mist  at  last.  I  am  weary  of 
going  to  funerals,  which  are  not  my  funerals, 
however  chatty  and  amusing  the  undertaker 
may  be.  I  confess  that  I  should  like  to  see 
again  the  lovely  heroine,  the  sweet  woman, 
capable  of  a  great  passion  and  a  great  sacrifice ; 
and  I  do  not  object  if  the  novelist  tries  her  to 
the  verge  of  endurance,  in  agonies  of  mind  and 
in  perils,  subjecting  her  to  wasting  sicknesses 
even,  if  he  only  brings  her  out  at  the  end  in  a 
blissful  compensation  of  her  troubles,  and  en 
dued  with  a  new  and  sweeter  charm.  No 
doubt  it  is  better  for  us  all,  and  better  art, 
that  in  the  novel  of  society  the  destiny  should 
be  decided  by  character.  What  an  artistic  and 
righteous  consummation  it  is  when  we  meet 
the  shrewd  and  wicked  old  Baroness  Bernstein 
at  Continental  gaming-tables,  and  feel  that 
there  was  no  other  logical  end  for  the  worldly 
and  fascinating  Beatrix  of  Henry  Esmond !  It 
is  one  of  the  great  privileges  of  fiction  to  right 
the  wrongs  of  life,  to  do  justice  to  the  deserv- 


MODERN    FICTION  155 

ing  and  the  vicious.  It  is  wholesome  for  us  to 
contemplate  the  justice,  even  if  we  do  not  often 
see  it  in  society.  It  is  true  that  hypocrisy  and 
vulgar  self-seeking  often  succeed  in  life,  occupy 
ing  high  places,  and  make  their  exit  in  the 
pageantry  of  honored  obsequies.  Yet  always 
the  man  is  conscious  of  the  hollowness  of  his 
triumph,  and  the  world  takes  a  pretty  accu 
rate  measure  of  it.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the 
novelist,  without  introducing  into  such  a 
career  what  is  called  disaster,  to  satisfy  our 
innate  love  of  justice  by  letting  us  see  the  true 
nature  of  such  prosperity.  The  unscrupulous 
man  amasses  wealth,  lives  in  luxury  and  splen 
dor,  and  dies  in  the  odor  of  respectability. 
His  poor  and  honest  neighbor,  whom  he  has 
wronged  and  defrauded,  lives  in  misery,  and 
dies  in  disappointment  and  penury.  The  novel 
ist  cannot  reverse  the  facts  without  such  a 
shock  to  our  experience  as  shall  destroy  for  us 
the  artistic  value  of  his  fiction,  and  bring  upon 
his  work  the  deserved  reproach  of  indiscrimi 
nately  "  rewarding  the  good  and  punishing  the 
bad."  But  we  have  a  right  to  ask  that  he 
shall  reveal  the  real  heart  and  character  of 
this  passing  show  of  life ;  for  not  to  do  this,  to 
content  himself  merely  with  exterior  appear 
ances,  is  for  the  majority  of  his  readers  to 


156  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

efface  the  lines  between  virtue  and  vice.  And 
we  ask  this  not  for  the  sake  of  the  moral 
lesson,  but  because  not  to  do  it  is,  to  our  deep 
consciousness,  inartistic  and  untrue  to  our  judg 
ment  of  life  as  it  goes  on.  Thackeray  used  to 
say  that  all  his  talent  was  in  his  eyes ;  meaning 
that  he  was  only  an  observer  and  reporter  of 
what  he  saw,  and  not  a  Providence  to  rectify 
human  affairs.  The  great  artist  undervalued 
his  genius.  He  reported  what  he  saw  as 
Raphael  and  Murillo  reported  what  they  saw. 
With  his  touch  of  genius  he  assigned  to  every 
thing  its  true  value,  moving  us  to  tenderness, 
to  pity,  to  scorn,  to  righteous  indignation,  to 
sympathy  with  humanity.  I  find  in  him  the 
highest  art,  and  not  that  indifference  to  the 
great  facts  and  deep  currents  and  destinies  of 
human  life,  that  want  of  enthusiasm  and  sym 
pathy,  which  has  got  the  name  of  "  art  for  art's 
sake."  Literary  fiction  is  a  barren  product  if 
it  wants  sympathy  and  love  for  men.  "  Art  for 
art's  sake  "  is  a  good  and  defensible  phrase,  if 
our  definition  of  art  includes  the  ideal,  and  not 
otherwise. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  has  come  about  that  in 
so  large  a  proportion  of  recent  fiction  it  is  held 
to  be  artistic  to  look  almost  altogether  upon 
the  shady  and  the  seamy  side  of  life,  giving  to 


MODERN    FICTION  157 

this  view  the  name  of  " realism";  to  select 
the  disagreeable,  the  vicious,  the  unwhole 
some  ;  to  give  us  for  our  companions,  in  our 
hours  of  leisure  and  relaxation,  only  the  silly 
and  the  weak-minded  woman,  the  fast  and 
slangy  girl,  the  intrigante  and  the  "  shady  "• 
to  borrow  the  language  of  the  society  she 
seeks — the  hero  of  irresolution,  the  prig,  the 
vulgar,  and  the  vicious ;  to  serve  us  only  with 
the  foibles  of  the  fashionable,  the  low  tone  of 
the  gay,  the  gilded  riffraff  of  our  social  state ; 
to  drag  us  forever  along  the  dizzy,  half-fract 
ured  precipice  of  the  seventh  commandment ; 
to  bring  us  into  relations  only  with  the  sordid 
and  the  common ;  to  force  us  to  sup  with  un 
wholesome  company  on  misery  and  sensuous- 
ness,  in  tales  so  utterly  unpleasant  that  we  are 
ready  to  welcome  any  disaster  as  a  relief  ;  and 
then — the  latest  and  finest  touch  of  modern 
art — to  leave  the  whole  weltering  mass  in  a 
chaos,  without  conclusion  and  without  possible 
issue. 

And  this  is  called  a  picture  of  real  life ! 
Heavens !  Is  it  true  that  in  England,  where  a 
great  proportion  of  the  fiction  we  describe  and 
loathe  is  produced ;  is  it  true  that  in  our  New 
England  society  there  is  nothing  but  frivolity, 
sordidness,  decay  of  purity  and  faith,  ignoble 


158  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

ambition  and  ignoble  living?  Is  there  no 
charm  in  social  life  —  no  self-sacrifice,  devo 
tion,  courage  to  stem  materialistic  conditions, 
and  live  above  them?  Are  there  no  noble 
women,  sensible,  beautiful,  winning,  with  the 
grace  that  all  the  world  loves,  albeit  with  the 
feminine  weaknesses  that  make  all  the  world 
hope  ?  Is  there  no  manliness  left  ?  Are  there 
no  homes  where  the  tempter  does  not  live 
with  the  tempted  in  a  mush  of  sentimental 
affinity?  Or  is  it,  in  fact,  more  artistic  to 
ignore  all  these,  and  paint  only  the  feeble  and 
the  repulsive  in  our  social  state  ?  The  feeble, 
the  sordid,  and  the  repulsive  in  our  social 
state  nobody  denies,  nor  does  anybody  deny 
the  exceeding  cleverness  with  which  our  social 
disorders  are  reproduced  in  fiction  by  a  few 
masters  of  their  art ;  but  is  it  not  time  that  it 
should  be  considered  good  art  to  show  some 
thing  of  the  clean  and  bright  side  ? 

This  is  pre-eminently  the  age  of  the  novel. 
The  development  of  variety  of  fiction  since 
the  days  of  Scott  and  Cooper  is  prodigious. 
The  prejudice  against  novel-reading  is  quite 
broken  down,  since  fiction  has  taken  all  fields 
for  its  province;  everybody  reads  novels. 
Three-quarters  of  the  books  taken  from  the 
circulating  library  are  stories ;  they  make  up 


MODERN    FICTION  159 

half  the  library  of  the  Sunday-schools.  If  a 
writer  has  anything  to  say,  or  thinks  he  has, 
he  knows  that  he  can  most  certainly  reach 
the  ear  of  the  public  by  the  medium  of  a 
story.  So  we  have  novels  for  children ;  nov 
els  religious,  scientific,  historical,  archa3olog- 
ical,  psychological,  pathological,  total  -  absti 
nence  ;  novels  of  travel,  of  adventure  and  ex 
ploration  ;  novels  domestic,  and  the  perpetual 
spawn  of  books  called  novels  of  society.  Not 
only  is  everything  turned  into  a  story,  real  or 
so  called,  but  there  must  be  a  story  in  every 
thing.  The  stump-speaker  holds  his  audience 
by  well-worn  stories ;  the  preacher  wakes  up 
his  congregation  by  a  graphic  narrative ;  and 
the  Sunday-school  teacher  leads  his  children 
into  all  goodness  by  the  entertaining  path  of 
romance ;  we  even  had  a  President  who  gov 
erned  the  country  nearly  by  anecdotes. 

The  result  of  this  universal  demand  for  fic 
tion  is  necessarily  an  enormous  supply,  and  as 
everybody  writes,  without  reference  to  gifts, 
the  product  is  mainly  trash,  and  trash  of  a 
deleterious  sort ;  for  bad  art  in  literature  is 
bad  morals.  I  am  not  sure  but  the  so-called 
domestic,  the  diluted,  the  "goody,"  namby- 
pamby,  unrobust  stories,  which  are  so  largely 
read  by  school-girls,  young  ladies,  and  women, 


160  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

do  more  harm  than  the  "knowing,"  auda 
cious,  wicked  ones,  also,  it  is  reported,  read  by 
them,  and  written  largely  by  their  own  sex. 
For  minds  enfeebled  and  relaxed  by  stories 
lacking  even  intellectual  fibre  are  in  a  poor 
condition  to  meet  the  perils  of  life.  This  is 
not  the  place  for  discussing  the  stories  written 
for  the  young  and  for  the  Sunday-school.  It 
seems  impossible  to  check  the  flow  of  them, 
now  that  so  much  capital  is  invested  in  this 
industry  ;  but  I  think  that  healthy  public  sen 
timent  is  beginning  to  recognize  the  truth 
that  the  excessive  reading  of  this  class  of 
literature  by  the  young  is  weakening  to  the 
mind,  besides  being  a  serious  hinderance  to 
study  and  to  attention  to  the  literature  that 
has  substance. 

In  his  account  of  the  Eomantic  School  in 
Germany,  Heine  says,  "In  the  breast  of  a 
nation's  authors  there  always  lies  the  image 
of  its  future,  and  the  critic  who,  with  a  knife 
of  sufficient  keenness,  dissects  a  new  poet  can 
easily  prophesy,  as  from  the  entrails  of  a  sac 
rificial  animal,  what  shape  matters  will  as 
sume  in  Germany."  Now  if  all  the  poets  and 
novelists  of  England  and  America  to-day  were 
cut  up  into  little  pieces  (and  we  might  sacri 
fice  a  few  for  the  sake  of  the  experiment), 


MODERN    FICTION  161 

there  is  no  inspecting  augur  who  could  divine 
therefrom  our  literary  future.  The  diverse 
indications  would  puzzle  the  most  acute  dis 
sector.  Lost  in  the  variety,  the  multiplicity 
of  minute  details,  the  refinements  of  analysis 
and  introspection,  he  would  miss  any  leading 
indications.  For  with  all  its  variety,  it  seems 
to  me  that  one  characteristic  of  recent  fiction 
is  its  narrowness — narrowness  of  vision  and 
of  treatment.  It  deals  with  lives  rather  than 
with  life.  Lacking  ideality,  it  fails  of  broad 
perception.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  that 
with  the  advent  of  the  genuine  novel  of  so 
ciety,  in  the  first  part  of  this  century,  a  great 
step  forward  was  taken  in  fiction.  And  so 
there  was.  If  the  artist  did  not  use  a  big 
canvas,  he  adopted  a  broad  treatment.  But 
the  tendency  now  is  to  push  analysis  of  indi 
vidual  peculiarities  to  an  extreme,  and  to  sub 
stitute  a  study  of  traits  for  a  representation  of 
human  life. 

It  scarcely  need  be  said  that  it  is  not  multi 
tude  of  figures  on  a  literary  canvas  that  se 
cures  breadth  of  treatment.  The  novel  may 
be  narrow,  though  it  swarms  with  a  hundred 
personages.  It  may  be  as  wide  as  life,  as 
high  as  imagination  can  lift  itself ;  it  may 
image  to  us  a  whole  social  state,  though  it 


162  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

puts  in  motion  no  more  persons  than  we  made 
the  acquaintance  of  in  one  of  the  romances 
of  Hawthorne.  Consider  for  a  moment  how 
Thackeray  produced  his  marvellous  results. 
We  follow  with  him,  in  one  of  his  novels  of 
society,  the  fortunes  of  a  very  few  people. 
They  are  so  vividly  portrayed  that  we  are 
convinced  the  author  must  have  known  them 
in  that  great  world  with  which  he  was  so  fa 
miliar;  we  should  not  be  surprised  to  meet 
any  of  them  in  the  streets  of  London.  When 
we  visit  the  Charterhouse  School,  and  see  the 
old  forms  where  the  boys  sat  nearly  a  century 
ago,  we  have  in  our  minds  Colonel  Newcome 
as  really  as  we  have  Charles  Lamb  and  Cole 
ridge  and  De  Quincey.  We  are  absorbed,  as 
we  read,  in  the  evolution  of  the  characters  of 
perhaps  only  half  a  dozen  people  ;  and  yet  all 
the  world,  all  great,  roaring,  struggling  Lon 
don,  is  in  the  story,  and  Clive,  and  Philip,  and 
Ethel,  and  Becky  Sharpe,  and  Captain  Costi- 
gan  are  a  part  of  life.  It  is  the  flowery  month 
of  May ;  the  scent  of  the  hawthorn  is  in  the 
air,  and  the  tender  flush  of  the  new  spring 
suffuses  the  Park,  where  the  tide  of  fashion 
and  pleasure  and  idleness  surges  up  and  down 
— the  sauntering  throng,  the  splendid  equi 
pages,  the  endless  cavalcade  in  Rotten  Row,  in 


MODERN    FICTION  163 

which  Olive  descries  afar  off  the  white  plume 
of  his  lady-love  dancing  on  the  waves  of  an 
unattainable  society;  the  club  windows  are 
all  occupied;  Parliament  is  in  session,  with 
its  nightly  echoes  of  imperial  politics ;  the 
thronged  streets  roar  with  life  from  morn  till 
nearly  morn  again ;  the  drawing-rooms  hum 
and  sparkle  in  the  crush  of  a  London  season ; 
as  you  walk  the  midnight  pavement,  through 
the  swinging  doors  of  the  cider-cellars  comes 
the  burst  of  bacchanalian  song.  Here  is  the 
world  of  the  press  and  of  letters;  here  are 
institutions,  an  army,  a  navy,  commerce, 
glimpses  of  great  ships  going  to  and  fro  on 
distant  seas,  of  India,  of  Australia.  This  one 
book  is  an  epitome  of  English  life,  almost  of 
the  empire  itself.  "We  are  conscious  of  all 
this,  so  much  breadth  and  atmosphere  has  the 
artist  given  his  little  history  of  half  a  dozen 
people  in  this  struggling  world. 

But  this  background  of  a  great  city,  of  an 
empire,  is  not  essential  to  the  breadth  of  treat 
ment  upon  which  we  insist  in  fiction,  to  broad 
characterization,  to  the  play  of  imagination 
about  common  things  which  transfigures  them 
into  the  immortal  beauty  of  artistic  creations. 
"What  a  simple  idyl  in  itself  is  Goethe's  Her 
mann  and  Dorothea  !  It  is  the  creation  of  a 


164  RELATION    OF    LITEKATUKE   TO    LIFE 

few  master-touches,  using  only  common  ma 
terial.  Yet  it  has  in  it  the  breadth  of  life 
itself,  the  depth  and  passion  of  all  our  human 
struggle  in  the  world  —  a  little  story  with  a 
vast  horizon. 

It  is  constantly  said  that  the  conditions  in 
America  are  unfavorable  to  the  higher  fic 
tion;  that  our  society  is  unformed,  without 
centre,  without  the  definition  of  classes,  which 
give  the  light  and  shade  that  Heine  speaks  of 
in  Don  Quixote ;  that  it  lacks  types  and  cus 
toms  that  can  be  widely  recognized  and  ac 
cepted  as  national  and  characteristic;  that 
we  have  no  past;  that  we  want  both  ro 
mantic  and  historic  background ;  that  we 
are  in  a  shifting,  flowing,  forming  period 
which  fiction  cannot  seize  on;  that  we  are 
in  diversity  and  confusion  that  baffle  artis 
tic  treatment;  in  short,  that  American  life 
is  too  vast,  varied,  and  crude  for  the  purpose 
of  the  novelist. 

These  excuses  might  be  accepted  as  fully 
accounting  for  our  failure — or  shall  we  say 
our  delay  ? — if  it  were  not  for  two  or  three  of 
our  literary  performances.  It  is  true  that  no 
novel  has  been  written,  and  we  dare  say  no 
novel  will  be  written,  that  is,  or  will  be,  an 
epitome  of  the  manifold  diversities  of  Ameri- 


MODERN    FICTION  165 

can  life,  unless  it  be  in  the  form  of  one  of 
"Walt  Whitman's  catalogues.  But  we  are  not 
without  peculiar  types;  not  without  charac 
ters,  not  without  incidents,  stories,  heroisms, 
inequalities ;  not  without  the  charms  of  nat 
ure  in  infinite  variety ;  and  human  nature  is 
the  same  here  that  it  is  in  Spain,  France,  and 
England.  Out  of  these  materials  Cooper  wrote 
romances,  narratives  stamped  with  the  distinct 
characteristics  of  American  life  and  scenery, 
that  were  and  are  eagerly  read  by  all  civilized 
peoples,  and  which  secured  the  universal  ver 
dict  which  only  breadth  of  treatment  com 
mands.  Out  of  these  materials,  also,  Haw 
thorne,  child  endowed  with  a  creative  imag 
ination,  wove  those  tragedies  of  interior  life, 
those  novels  of  our  provincial  New  England, 
which  rank  among  the  great  masterpieces  of 
the  novelist's  art.  The  master  artist  can  ideal 
ize  even  our  crude  material,  and  make  it 
serve. 

These  exceptions  to  a  rule  do  not  go  to 
prove  the  general  assertion  of  a  poverty  of 
material  for  fiction  here;  the  simple  truth 
probably  is  that,  for  reasons  incident  to  the 
development  of  a  new  region  of  the  earth, 
creative  genius  has  been  turned  in  other  di 
rections  than  that  of  fictitious  literature.  Nor 


166  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

do  I  think  that  we  need  to  take  shelter  be 
hind  the  well-worn  and  convenient  observa 
tion,  the  truth  of  which  stands  in  much  doubt, 
that  literature  is  the  final  flower  of  a  nation's 
civilization. 

However,  this  is  somewhat  a  digression. 
"We  are  speaking  of  the  tendency  of  recent 
fiction,  very  much  the  same  everywhere  that 
novels  are  written,  which  we  have  imperfectly 
sketched.  It  is  probably  of  no  more  use  to 
protest  against  it  than  it  is  to  protest  against 
the  vulgar  realism  in  pictorial  art,  which  holds 
ugliness  and  beauty  in  equal  esteem;  or  against 
sestheticism  gone  to  seed  in  languid  affecta 
tions;  or  against  the  enthusiasm  of  a  social 
life  which  wreaks  its  religion  on  the  color  of 
a  vestment,  or  sighs  out  its  divine  soul  over 
an  ancient  pewter  mug.  Most  of  our  fiction, 
in  its  extreme  analysis,  introspection  and  self- 
consciousness,  in  its  devotion  to  details,  in  its 
disregard  of  the  ideal,  in  its  selection  as  well 
as  in  its  treatment  of  nature,  is  simply  of  a 
piece  with  a  good  deal  else  that  passes  for 
genuine  art.  Much  of  it  is  admirable  in  work 
manship,  and  exhibits  a  cleverness  in  details 
and  a  subtlety  in  the  observation  of  traits 
which  many  great  novels  lack.  But  I  should 
be  sorry  to  think  that  the  historian  will  judge 


MODERN    FICTION  167 

our  social  life  by  it,  and  I  doubt  not  that 
most  of  us  are  ready  for  a  more  ideal,  that 
is  to  say,  a  more  artistic,  view  of  our  per 
formances  in  this  bright  and  pathetic  world. 

(1883.) 


THOUGHTS    SUGGESTED    BY 
MR.  EROUDE'S  "PROGRESS" 


THOUGHTS    SUGGESTED    BY 
ME.  FROUDE'S  "PROGRESS" 

To  revisit  this  earth,  some  ages  after  their 
departure  from  it,  is  a  common  wish  among 
men.  We  frequently  hear  men  say  that  they 
would  give  so  many  months  or  years  of  their 
lives  in  exchange  for  a  less  number  on  the 
globe  one  or  two  or  three  centuries  from  now. 
Merely  to  see  the  world  from  some  remote 
sphere,  like  the  distant  spectator  of  a  play 
which  passes  in  dumb  show,  would  not  suffice. 
They  wrould  like  to  be  of  the  world  again, 
and  enter  into  its  feelings,  passions,  hopes ; 
to  feel  the  sweep  of  its  current,  and  so  to 
comprehend  what  it  has  become. 

I  suppose  that  we  all  who  are  thoroughly 
interested  in  this  world  have  this  desire.  There 
are  some  select  souls  who  sit  apart  in  calm  en 
durance,  waiting  to  be  translated  out  of  a  world 
they  are  almost  tired  of  patronizing,  to  whom 
the  whole  thing  seems,  doubtless,  like  a  cheap 
performance.  They  sit  on  the  fence  of  criti 
cism,  and  cannot  for  the  life  of  them  see  wrhat 


172  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

the  vulgar  crowd  make  such  a  toil  and  sweat 
about.  The  prizes  are  the  same  dreary,  old, 
fading  bay  wreaths.  As  for  the  soldiers  march 
ing  past,  their  uniforms  are  torn,  their  hats 
are  shocking,  their  shoes  are  dusty,  they  do 
not  appear  (to  a  man  sitting  on  the  fence)  to 
march  with  any  kind  of  spirit,  their  flags  are 
old  and  tattered,  the  drums  they  beat  are  bar 
barous;  and,  besides,  it  is  not  probable  that 
they  are  going  anywhere ;  they  will  mere 
ly  come  round  again,  the  same  people,  like 
the  marching  chorus  in  the  Beggars  Opera. 
Such  critics,  of  course,  would  not  care  to  see 
the  vulgar  show  over  again ;  it  is  enough  for 
them  to  put  on  record  their  protest  against  it 
in  the  weekly  Judgment  Days  which  they 
edit,  and  by-and-by  withdraw  out  of  their  pri 
vate  boxes,  with  pity  for  a  world  in  the  crea 
tion  of  which  they  were  not  consulted. 

The  desire  to  revisit  this  earth  is,  I  think, 
based  upon  a  belief,  wellnigh  universal,  that 
the  world  is  to  make  some  progress,  and  that 
it  will  be  more  interesting  in  the  future  than 
it  is  now.  I  believe  that  the  human  mind, 
whenever  it  is  developed  enough  to  compre 
hend  its  own  action,  rests,  and  has  always  rest 
ed,  in  this  expectation.  I  do  not  know  any 
period  of  time  in  which  the  civilized  mind  has 


173 

not  had  expectation  of  something  better  for 
the  race  in  the  future.  This  expectation  is 
sometimes  stronger  than  it  is  at  others ;  and, 
again,  there  are  always  those  who  say  that  the 
Golden  Age  is  behind  them.  It  is  always  be 
hind  or  before  us ;  the  poor  present  alone  has 
no  friends ;  the  present,  in  the  minds  of  many, 
is  only  the  car  that  is  carrying  us  away  from 
an  age  of  virtue  and  of  happiness,  or  that  is 
perhaps  bearing  us  on  to  a  time  of  ease  and 
comfort  and  security. 

Perhaps  it  is  worth  while,  in  view  of  certain 
recent  discussions,  and  especially  of  some  free 
criticisms  of  this  country,  to  consider  whether 
there  is  any  intention  of  progress  in  this  world, 
and  whether  that  intention  is  discoverable  in 
the  age  in  which  we  live.  If  it  is  an  old  ques 
tion,  it  is  not  a  settled  one ;  the  practical  dis 
belief  in  any  such  progress  is  widely  enter 
tained.  'Not  long  ago  Mr.  James  Anthony 
Froude  published  an  essay  on  Progress,  in 
which  he  examined  some  of  the  evidences 
upon  which  we  rely  to  prove  that  we  live  in 
an  "  era  of  progress."  It  is  a  melancholy  es 
say,  for  its  tone  is  that  of  profound  scepticism 
as  to  certain  influences  and  means  of  progress 
upon  which  we  in  this  country  most  rely. 
With  the  illustrative  arguments  of  Mr.  Froude's 


174  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

essay  I  do  not  purpose  specially  to  meddle ;  I 
recall  it  to  the  attention  of  the  reader  as  a  rep 
resentative  type  of  scepticism  regarding  prog 
ress  which  is  somewhat  common  among  intel 
lectual  men,  and  is  not  confined  to  England. 
It  is  not  exactly  an  acceptance  of  Rousseau's 
notion  that  civilization  is  a  mistake,  and  that 
it  would  be  better  for  us  all  to  return  to  a 
state  of  nature — though  in  John  Ruskin's  case 
it  nearly  amounts  to  this ;  but  it  is  a  hostility 
in  its  last  analysis  to  what  we  understand  by 
the  education  of  the  people,  and  to  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  people  by  themselves.  If  Mr. 
Froude's  essay  is  anything  but  an  exhibition 
of  the  scholarly  weapons  of  criticism,  it  is  the 
expression  of  a  profound  disbelief  in  the  intel 
lectual  education  of  the  masses  of  the  people. 
Mr.  Ruskin  goes  further.  He  makes  his  open 
proclamation  against  any  emancipation  from 
hand-toil.  Steam  is  the  devil  himself  let  loose 
from  the  pit,  and  all  labor-saving  machinery  is 
his  own  invention.  Mr.  Ruskin  is  the  bull  that 
stands  upon  the  track  and  threatens  with  an 
nihilation  the  on-coming  locomotive;  and  I 
think  that  any  spectator  who  sees  his  men 
acing  attitude  and  hears  his  roaring  cannot 
but  have  fears  for  the  locomotive. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  infidelity  concerning 


PROGRESS "  175 

humanity,  and  I  do  not  know  which  is  the 
more  withering  in  its  effects.  One  is  that 
which  regards  this  world  as  only  a  waste  and 
a  desert,  across  the  sands  of  which  we  are 
merely  fugitives,  fleeing  from  the  wrath  to 
come.  The  other  is  that  doubt  of  any  divine 
intention  in  development,  in  history,  which  we 
call  progress  from  age  to  age. 

In  the  eyes  of  this  latter  infidelity  history 
is  not  a  procession  or  a  progression,  but  only 
a  series  of  disconnected  pictures,  each  little  era 
rounded  with  its  own  growth,  fruitage,  and  de 
cay,  a  series  of  incidents  or  experiments,  with 
out  even  the  string  of  a  far-reaching  purpose 
to  connect  them.  There  is  no  intention  of 
progress  in  it  all.  The  race  is  barbarous,  and 
then  it  changes  to  civilized ;  in  the  one  case 
the  strong  rob  the  weak  by  brute  force ;  in  the 
other  the  crafty  rob  the  unwary  by  finesse. 
The  latter  is  a  more  agreeable  state  of  things ; 
but  it  comes  to  about  the  same.  The  robber 
used  to  knock  us  down  and  take  away  our 
sheepskins ;  he  now  administers  chloroform 
and  relieves  us  of  our  watches.  It  is  a  gen 
tlemanly  proceeding,  and  scientific,  and  we 
call  it  civilization.  Meantime  human  nature 
remains  the  same,  and  the  whole  thing  is  a 
weary  round  that  has  no  advance  in  it. 


176  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUKE   TO    LIFE 

If  this  is  true  the  succession  of  men  and  of 
races  is  no  better  than  a  vegetable  succession ; 
and  Mr.  Froude  is  quite  right  in  doubting  if 
education  of  the  brain  will  do  the  English 
agricultural  laborer  any  good ;  and  Mr.  Ruskin 
ought  to  be  aided  in  his  crusade  against  ma 
chinery,  which  turns  the  world  upside  down. 
The  best  that  can  be  done  with  a  man  is  the 
best  that  can  be  done  with  a  plant — set  him 
out  in  some  favorable  locality,  or  leave  him 
where  he  happened  to  strike  root,  and  there 
let  him  grow  and  mature  in  measure  and 
quiet — especially  quiet — as  he  may  in  God's 
sun  and  rain.  If  he  happens  to  be  a  cabbage, 
in  Heaven's  name  don't  try  to  make  a  rose  of 
him,  and  do  not  disturb  the  vegetable  maturing 
of  his  head  by  grafting  ideas  upon  his  stock. 

The  most  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
those  who  maintain  that  there  is  an  intention 
of  progress  in  this  world  from  century  to  cen 
tury,  from  age  to  age — a  discernible  growth,  a 
universal  development — is  the  fact  that  all  na 
tions  do  not  make  progress  at  the  same  time 
or  in  the  same  ratio ;  that  nations  reach  a  cer 
tain  development,  and  then  fall  away  and  even 
retrograde ;  that  while  one  may  be  advancing 
into  high  civilization,  another  is  lapsing  into 
deeper  barbarism,  and  that  nations  appear  to 


177 

have  a  limit  of  growth.  If  there  were  a  law 
of  progress,  an  intention  of  it  in  all  the  world, 
ought  not  all  peoples  and  tribes  to  advance 
pari  passu,  or  at  least  ought  there  not  to  be 
discernible  a  general  movement,  historical  and 
contemporary  ?  There  is  no  such  general 
movement  which  can  be  computed,  the  law 
of  which  can  be  discovered — therefore  it  does 
not  exist.  In  a  kind  of  despair,  we  are  apt  to 
run  over  in  our  minds  empires  and  pre-emi 
nent  civilizations  that  have  existed,  and  then 
to  doubt  whether  life  in  this  world  is  intended 
to  be  anything  more  than  a  series  of  experi 
ments.  There  is  the  German  nation  of  our 
day,  the  most  aggressive  in  various  fields  of 
intellectual  activity,  a  Hercules  of  scholarship, 
the  most  thoroughly  trained  and  powerful— 
though  its  civilization  marches  to  the  noise  of 
the  hateful  and  barbarous  drum.  In  what 
points  is  it  better  than  the  Greek  nation  of 
the  age  of  its  superlative  artists,  philosophers, 
poets— the  age  of  the  most  joyous,  elastic  hu 
man  souls  in  the  most  perfect  human  bodies  ? 
Again,  it  is  perhaps  a  fanciful  notion  that  the 
Atlantis  of  Plato  was  the  northern  part  of 
the  South  American  continent,  projecting  out 
towards  Africa,  and  that  the  Antilles  are  the 
peaks  and  headlands  of  its  sunken  bulk.  But 


12 


178  RELATION    OF    LITERATUEE   TO    LIFE 

there  are  evidences  enough  that  the  shores  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  Sea 
were  within  historic  periods  the  seat  of  a  very 
considerable  civilization — the  seat  of  cities,  of 
commerce,  of  trade,  of  palaces  and  pleasure- 
gardens —  faint  images,  perhaps,  of  the  luxu 
rious  civilization  of  Baise  and  Pozzuoli  and 
Capri  in  the  most  profligate  period  of  the 
Roman  empire.  It  is  not  more  difficult  to 
believe  that  there  was  a  great  material  de 
velopment  here  than  to  believe  it  of  the  Afri 
can  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.  Not  to  mul 
tiply  instances  that  will  occur  to  all,  we  see  as 
many  retrograde  as  advance  movements,  and 
we  see,  also,  that  while  one  spot  of  the  earth 
at  one  time  seems  to  be  the  chosen  theatre  of 
progress,  other  portions  of  the  globe  are  abso 
lutely  dead  and  without  the  least  leaven  of 
advancing  life,  and  we  cannot  understand  how 
this  can  be  if  there  is  any  such  thing  as  an 
all-pervading  and  animating  intention  or  law 
of  progress.  And  then  we  are  reminded  that 
the  individual  human  mind  long  ago  attained 
its  height  of  power  and  capacity.  It  is  enough 
to  recall  the  names  of  Moses,  Buddha,  Confu 
cius,  Socrates,  Paul,  Homer,  David. 

No  doubt  it  has  seemed  to  other  periods 
and   other  nations,   as  it  now  does  to  the 


179 

present  civilized  races,  that  they  were  the 
chosen  times  and  peoples  of  an  extraordinary 
and  limitless  development.  It  must  have 
seemed  so  to  the  Jews  who  overran  Palestine 
and  set  their  shining  cities  on  all  the  hills  of 
heathendom.  It  must  have  seemed  so  to  the 
Babylonish  conquerors  who  swept  over  Pales 
tine  in  turn,  on  their  way  to  greater  conquests 
in  Egypt.  It  must  have  seemed  so  to  Greece 
when  the  Acropolis  was  to  the  outlying  world 
what  the  imperial  calla  is  to  the  marsh  in 
which  it  lifts  its  superb  flower.  It  must  have 
seemed  so  to  Koine  when  its  solid  roads  of 
stone  ran  to  all  parts  of  a  tributary  world  - 
the  highways  of  the  legions,  her  ministers, 
and  of  the  wealth  that  poured  into  her  treas 
ury.  It  must  have  seemed  so  to  followers  of 
Mahomet,  when  the  crescent  knew  no  pause 
in  its  march  up  the  Arabian  peninsula  to  the 
Bosporus,  to  India,  along  the  Mediterranean 
shores  to  Spain,  where  in  the  eighth  century  it 
flowered  into  a  culture,  a  learning,  a  re 
finement  in  art  and  manners,  to  which  the 
Christian  world  of  that  day  was  a  stranger. 
It  must  have  seemed  so  in  the  awakening 

o 

of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  Europe,  Spain 
leading,  began  that  great  movement  of  dis 
covery  and  aggrandizement  which  has,  in  the 


180  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

end,  been  profitable  only  to  a  portion  of  the 
adventurers.  And  what  shall  we  say  of  a 
nation  as  old,  if  not  older  than  any  of  these 
we  have  mentioned,  slowly  building  up  mean 
time  a  civilization  and  perfecting  a  system 
of  government  and  a  social  economy  which 
should  outlast  them  all,  and  remain  to  our  day 
almost  the  sole  monument  of  permanence  and 
stability  in  a  shifting  world. 

How  many  times  has  the  face  of  Europe 
been  changed  —  and  parts  of  Africa,  and  Asia 
Minor  too,  for  that  matter — by  conquests  and 
crusades,  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  civilizations 
as  well  as  dynasties  ?  while  China  has  endured, 
almost  undisturbed,  under  a  system  of  law,  ad 
ministration,  morality,  as  old  as  the  Pyramids 
probably — existed  a  coherent  nation,  highly 
developed  in  certain  essentials,  meeting  and 
mastering,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  great 
problem  of  an  over  -  populated  territory,  liv 
ing  in  a  good  degree  of  peace  and  social 
order,  of  respect  for  age  and  law,  and  mak 
ing  a  continuous  history,  the  mere  record  of 
which  is  printed  in  a  thousand  bulky  vol 
umes.  Yet  we  speak  of  the  Chinese  empire 
as  an  instance  of  arrested  growth,  for  which 
there  is  no  salvation,  except  it  shall  catch 
the  spirit  of  progress  abroad  in  the  world. 


ME.  FKOUDE'S  "  PROGRESS  "  181 

What  is  this  progress,  and  where  does  it  come 
from  ? 

Think  for  a  moment  of  this  significant 
situation.  For  thousands  of  years,  empires, 
systems  of  society,  systems  of  civilization — 
Egyptian,  Jewish,  Greek,  Roman,  Moslem, 
Feudal — have  flourished  and  fallen,  grown  to 
a  certain  height  and  passed  away ;  great  or 
ganized  fabrics  have  gone  down,  and,  if  there 
has  been  any  progress,  it  has  been  as  often 
defeated  as  renewed.  And  here  is  an  empire, 
apart  from  this  scene  of  alternate  success  and 
disaster,  which  has  existed  in  a  certain  con 
tinuity  and  stability,  and  yet,  now  that  it  is 
uncovered  and  stands  face  to  face  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  it  finds  that  it  has  little 
to  teach  us,  and  almost  everything  to  learn 
from  us.  The  old  empire  sends  its  students  to 
learn  of  us,  the  newest  child  of  civilization ;  and 
through  us  they  learn  all  the  great  past,  its 
literature,  law,  science,  out  of  which  we  sprang. 
It  appears,  then,  that  progress  has,  after  all, 
been  with  the  shifting  world,  that  has  been  all 
this  time  going  to  pieces,  rather  than  with  the 
world  that  has  been  permanent  and  unshaken. 

When  we  speak  of  progress  we  may  mean 
two  things.  We  may  mean  a  lifting  of  the 
races  as  a  whole  by  reason  of  more  power 


182  RELATION    OF  LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

over  the  material  world,  by  reason  of  what  we 
call  the  conquest  of  nature  and  a  practical  use 
of  its  forces;  or  we  may  mean  a  higher  de 
velopment  of  the  individual  man,  so  that  he 
shall  be  better  and  happier.  If  from  age  to 
age  it  is  discoverable  that  the  earth  is  better 
adapted  to  man  as  a  dwelling-place,  and  he  is 
on  the  whole  fitted  to  get  more  out  of  it  for 
his  own  growth,  is  not  that  progress,  and  is  it 
not  evidence  of  an  intention  of  progress  ? 

Now,  it  is  sometimes  said  that  Providence, 
in  the  economy  of  this  world,  cares  nothing 
for  the  individual,  but  works  out  its  ideas  and 
purposes  through  the  races,  and  in  certain 
periods,  slowly  bringing  in,  by  great  agencies 
and  by  processes  destructive  to  individuals 
and  to  millions  of  helpless  human  beings, 
truths  and  principles;  so  laying  stepping- 
stones  onward  to  a  great  consummation.  I 
do  not  care  to  dwell  upon  this  thought,  but 
let  us  see  if  we  can  find  any  evidence  in  his 
tory  of  the  presence  in  this  world  of  an  in 
tention  of  progress. 

It  is  common  to  say  that,  if  the  world 
makes  progress  at  all,  it  is  by  its  great  men, 
and  when  anything  important  for  the  race  is 
to  be  done,  a  great  man  is  raised  up  to  do  it. 
Yet  another  way  to  look  at  it  is,  that  the 


'PKOGKESS''  183 

doing  of  something  at  the  appointed  time 
makes  the  man  who  does  it  great,  or  at  least 
celebrated.  The  man  often  appears  to  be  only 
a  favored  instrument  of  communication.  As 
we  glance  back  we  recognize  the  truth  that, 
at  this  and  that  period,  the  time  had  come 
for  certain  discoveries.  Intelligence  seemed 
pressing  in  from  the  invisible.  Many  minds 
were  on  the  alert  to  apprehend  it.  We  believe, 
for  instance,  that  if  Gutenberg  had  not  in 
vented  movable  types,  somebody  else  would 
have  given  them  to  the  world  about  that  time. 
Ideas,  at  certain  times,  throng  for  admission 
into  the  world ;  and  we  are  all  familiar  with 
the  fact  that  the  same  important  idea  (never 
before  revealed  in  all  the  ages)  occurs  to 
separate  and  widely  distinct  minds  at  about 
the  same  time.  The  invention  of  the  electric 
telegraph  seemed  to  burst  upon  the  world 
simultaneously  from  many  quarters — not  per 
fect,  perhaps,  but  the  time  for  the  idea  had 
come — and  happy  was  it  for  the  man  who  en 
tertained  it.  "We  have  agreed  to  call  Colum 
bus  the  discoverer  of  America,  but  I  suppose 
there  is  no  doubt  that  America  had  been 
visited  by  European,  and  probably  Asiatic, 
people  ages  before  Columbus;  that  four  or 
five  centuries  before  him  people  from  northern 


184  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

Europe  had  settlements  here;  he  was  for 
tunate,  however,  in  "  discovering "  it  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  when  the  world,  in  its  prog 
ress,  was  ready  for  it.  If  the  Greeks  had  had 
gunpowder,  electro  -  magnetism,  the  printing 
press,  history  would  need  to  be  rewritten. 
"Why  the  inquisitive  Greek  mind  did  not  find 
out  these  things  is  a  mystery  upon  any  other 
theory  than  the  one  we  are  considering. 

And  it  is  as  mysterious  that  China,  having 
gunpowder  and  the  art  of  printing,  is  not  to 
day  like  Germany. 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  progress,  or  an 
intention  of  progress,  in  the  world,  indepen 
dent  of  individual  men.  Things  get  on  by  all 
sorts  of  instruments,  and  sometimes  by  very 
poor  ones.  There  are  times  when  new  thoughts 
or  applications  of  known  principles  seem  to 
throng  from  the  invisible  for  expression 
through  human  media,  and  there  is  hardly 
ever  an  important  invention  set  free  in  the 
world  that  men  do  not  appear  to  be  ready 
cordially  to  receive  it.  Often  we  should  be 
justified  in  saying  that  there  was  a  widespread 
expectation  of  it.  Almost  all  the  great  inven 
tions  and  the  ingenious  application  of  prin 
ciples  have  many  claimants  for  the  honor  of 
priority. 


185 

On  any  other  theory  than  this,  that  there 
is  present  in  the  world  an  intention  of  prog 
ress  which  outlasts  individuals,  and  even  races, 
I  cannot  account  for  the  fact  that,  while  civil 
izations  decay  and  pass  away,  and  human 
systems  go  to  pieces,  ideas  remain  and  ac 
cumulate.  "We,  the  latest  age,  are  the  inherit 
ors  of  all  the  foregoing  ages.  I  do  not  believe 
that  anything  of  importance  has  been  lost  to 
the  world.  The  Jewish  civilization  was  torn 
up  root  and  branch,  but  whatever  was  valu 
able  in  the  Jewish  polity  is  ours  now.  We 
may  say  the  same  of  the  civilizations  of  Athens 
and  of  Rome ;  though  the  entire  organization 
of  the  ancient  world,  to  use  Mr.  Froude's 
figure,  collapsed  into  a  heap  of  incoherent 
sand,  the  ideas  remained,  and  Greek  art  and 
Roman  law  are  part  of  the  world's  solid  pos 
sessions. 

Even  those  who  question  the  value  to  the 
individual  of  what  we  call  progress,  admit,  I 
suppose,  the  increase  of  knowledge  in  the 
world  from  age  to  age,  and  not  only  its  in 
crease,  but  its  diffusion.  The  intelligent 
school  -  boy  to  -  day  knows  more  than  the 
ancient  sages  knew — more  about  the  visible 
heavens,  more  of  the  secrets  of  the  earth, 
more  of  the  human  body.  The  rudiments 


186  RELATION    OF    LITEKATUKE   TO    LIFE 

of  his  education,  the  common  experiences 
of  his  every-day  life,  were,  at  the  best,  the 
guesses  and  speculations  of  a  remote  age. 
There  is  certainly  an  accumulation  of  facts, 
ideas,  knowledge.  Whether  this  makes  men 
better,  wiser,  happier,  is  indeed  disputed. 

In  order  to  maintain  the  notion  of  a  general 
and  intended  progress,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
show  that  no  preceding  age  has  excelled  ours 
in  some  special  development.  Phidias  has  had 
no  rival  in  sculpture,  we  may  admit.  It  is 
possible  that  glass  was  once  made  as  flexible 
as  leather,  and  that  copper  could  be  hardened 
like  steel.  But  I  do  not  take  much  stock  in 
the  "lost  arts,"  the  wondering  theme  of  the 
lyceums.  The  knowledge  of  the  natural 
world,  and  of  materials,  was  never,  I  believe, 
so  extensive  and  exact  as  it  is  to-day.  It  is 
possible  that  there  are  tricks  of  chemistry, 
ingenious  processes,  secrets  of  color,  of  which 
we  are  ignorant ;  but  I  do  not  believe  there 
was  ever  an  ancient  alchemist  who  could  not 
be  taught  something  in  a  modern  laboratory. 
The  vast  engineering  works  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  the  remains  of  their  temples  and 
pyramids  excite  our  wonder;  but  I  have  no 
doubt  that  President  Grant,  if  he  becomes  the 
tyrant  they  say  he  is  becoming,  and  commands 


ME.  FEOUDE'S  "PKOGKESS"  187 

the  labor  of  forty  millions  of  slaves  —  a  large 
proportion  of  them  office  -  holders,  —  could 
build  a  Karnak,  or  erect  a  string  of  pyramids 
across  New  Jersey. 

Mr.  Froude  runs  lightly  over  a  list  of  sub 
jects  upon  which  the  believer  in  progress  relies 
for  his  belief,  and  then  says  of  them  that  the 
world  calls  this  progress  —  he  calls  it  only 
change.  I  suppose  he  means  by  this  two 
things:  that  these  great  movements  of  our 
modern  life  are  not  any  evidence  of  a  perma 
nent  advance,  and  that  our  whole  structure 
may  tumble  into  a  heap  of  incoherent  sand,  as 
systems  of  society  have  done  before;  and, 
again,  that  it  is  questionable  if,  in  what  we 
call  a  stride  in  civilization,  the  individual  cit 
izen  is  becoming  any  purer  or  more  just,  or  if 
his  intelligence  is  directed  towards  learning  and 
doing  what  is  right,  or  only  to  the  means  of 
more  extended  pleasures. 

It  is,  perhaps,  idle  to  speculate  upon  the  first 
of  these  points  —  the  permanence  of  our  ad 
vance,  if  it  is  an  advance.  But  we  may  be 
encouraged  by  one  thing  that  distinguishes 
this  period  —  say  from  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  —  from  any  that  has  pre 
ceded  it.  I  mean  the  introduction  of  machin 
ery,  applied  to  the  multiplication  of  man's 


188  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

power  in  a  hundred  directions — to  manufactur 
ing,  to  locomotion,  to  the  diffusion  of  thought 
and  of  knowledge.  I  need  not  dwell  upon  this 
familiar  topic.  Since  this  period  began  there 
has  been,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  retrograde  move 
ment  anywhere,  but,  besides  the  material,  an 
intellectual  and  spiritual  kindling  the  world 
over,  for  which  history  has  no  sort  of  parallel. 
Truth  is  always  the  same,  and  will  make  its 
way,  but  this  subject  might  be  illustrated  by  a 
study  of  the  relation  of  Christianity  and  of  the 
brotherhood  of  men  to  machinery.  The  theme 
would  demand  an  essay  by  itself.  I  leave  it 
with  the  one  remark,  that  this  great  change 
now  being  wrought  in  the  world  by  the  multi 
plicity  of  machinery  is  not  more  a  material 
than  it  is  an  intellectual  one,  and  that  we  have 
no  instance  in  history  of  a  catastrophe  wide 
spread  enough  and  adequate  to  sweep  away  its 
results.  That  is  to  say,  none  of  the  catastrophes, 
not  even  the  corruptions,  which  brought  to 
ruin  the  ancient  civilizations,  would  work  any 
thing  like  the  same  disaster  in  an  age  which 
has  the  use  of  machinery  that  this  age  has. 

For  instance :  Gibbon  selects  the  period  be 
tween  the  accession  of  Trajan  and  the  death  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  as  the  time  in  which  the 
human  race  enjoyed  more  general  happiness 


PROGRESS "  189 

than  they  had  ever  known  before,  or  had  since 
known.  Yet,  says  Mr.  Froude,  in  the  midst  of 
this  prosperity  the  heart  of  the  empire  was 
dying  out  of  it;  luxury  and  selfishness  were 
eating  away  the  principle  that  held  society  to 
gether,  and  the  ancient  world  was  on  the  point 
of  collapsing  into  a  heap  of  incoherent  sand. 
Now,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  the 
catastrophe  which  did  happen  to  that  civiliza 
tion  could  have  happened  if  the  world  had 
then  possessed  the  steam-engine,  the  printing- 
press,  and  the  electric  telegraph.  The  Koman 
power  might  have  gone  down,  and  the  face  of 
the  world  been  recast;  but  such  universal 
chaos  and  such  a  relapse  for  the  individual 
people  would  seem  impossible. 

If  we  turn  from  these  general  considera 
tions  to  the  evidences  that  this  is  an  "era  of 
progress"  in  the  condition  of  individual  men, 
we  are  met  by  more  specific  denials.  Granted, 
it  is  said,  all  your  facilities  for  travel  and  com 
munication,  for  cheap  and  easy  manufacture, 
for  the  distribution  of  cheap  literature  and 
news,  your  cheap  education,  better  homes,  and 
all  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  your  machine 
civilization,  is  the  average  man,  the  agricult 
urist,  the  machinist,  the  laborer  any  better  for 
it  all  ?  Are  there  more  purity,  more  honest, 


190  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

fair  dealing,  genuine  work,  fear  and  honor  of 
God  ?  Are  the  proceeds  of  labor  more  evenly 
distributed?  These,  it  is  said,  are  the  criteria 
of  progress ;  all  else  is  misleading. 

Now,  it  is  true  that  the  ultimate  end  of  any 
system  of  government  or  civilization  should  be 
the  improvement  of  the  individual  man.  And 
yet  this  truth,  as  Mr.  Froude  puts  it,  is  only  a 
half-truth,  so  that  this  single  test  of  any  system 
may  not  do  for  a  given  time  and  a  limited 
area.  Other  and  wider  considerations  come  in. 
Disturbances,  which  for  a  while  unsettle  soci 
ety  and  do  not  bring  good  results  to  individuals, 
may,  nevertheless,  be  necessary,  and  may  be  a 
sign  of  progress.  Take  the  favorite  illustration 
of  Mr.  Froude  and  Mr.  Euskin — the  condition 
of  the  agricultural  laborer  of  England.  If  I 
understand  them,  the  civilization  of  the  last 
century  has  not  helped  his  position  as  a  man. 
If  I  understand  them,  he  was  a  better  man,  in 
a  better  condition  of  earthly  happiness,  and 
with  a  better  chance  of  heaven,  fifty  years  ago 
than  now,  before  the  "  era  of  progress  "  found 
him  out.  (It  ought  to  be  noticed  here,  that 
the  report  of  the  Parliamentary  Commission 
on  the  condition  of  the  English  agricultural 
laborer  does  not  sustain  Mr.  Froude's  assump 
tions.  On  the  contrary,  the  report  shows  that 


191 

his  condition  is  in  almost  all  respects  vastly 
better  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago.)  Mr.  Ruskin 
would  remove  the  steam-engine  and  all  its 
devilish  works  from  his  vicinity;  he  would 
abolish  factories,  speedy  travel  by  rail,  new 
fangled  instruments  of  agriculture,  our  patent 
education,  and  remit  him  to  his  ancient  con 
dition — tied  for  life  to  a  bit  of  ground,  which 
should  supply  all  his  simple  wants;  his  wife 
should  weave  the  clothes  for  the  family;  his 
children  should  learn  nothing  but  the  catechism 
and  to  speak  the  truth;  he  should  take  his 
religion  without  question  from  the  hearty,  fox 
hunting  parson,  and  live  and  die  undisturbed 
by  ideas.  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  if  Mr. 
Ruskin  could  realize  in  some  isolated  nation 
this  idea  of  a  pastoral,  simple  existence,  under 
a  paternal  government,  he  would  have  in  time 
an  ignorant,  stupid,  brutal  community  in  a 
great  deal  worse  case  than  the  agricultural 
laborers  of  England  are  at  present.  Three- 
fourths  of  the  crime  in  the  kingdom  of  Bavaria 
is  committed  in  the  Ultramontane  region  of 
the  Tyrol,  where  the  conditions  of  popular 
education  are  about  those  that  Mr.  Ruskin 
seems  to  regret  as  swept  away  by  the  present 
movement  in  England  —  a  stagnant  state  of 
things,  in  which  any  wind  of  heaven  would  be 


192  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

a  blessing,  even  if  it  were  a  tornado.  Educa 
tion  of  the  modern  sort  unsettles  the  peasant, 
renders  him  unfit  for  labor,  and  gives  us  a 
half-educated  idler  in  place  of  a  conscientious 
workman.  The  disuse  of  the  apprentice  sys 
tem  is  not  made  good  by  the  present  system 
of  education,  because  no  one  learns  a  trade 
well,  and  the  consequence  is  poor  work,  and 
a  sham  civilization  generally.  There  is  some 
truth  in  these  complaints.  But  the  way  out 
is  not  backward,  but  forward.  The  fault  is 
not  with  education,  though  it  may  be  with 
the  kind  of  education.  The  education  must 
go  forward ;  the  man  must  not  be  half  but 
wholly  educated.  It  is  only  half -knowledge, 
like  half-training  in  a  trade,  that  is  dangerous. 
But  what  I  wish  to  say  is,  that  notwith 
standing  certain  unfavorable  things  in  the  con 
dition  of  the  English  laborer  and  mechanic, 
his  chance  is  better  in  the  main  than  it  was 
fifty  years  ago.  The  world  is  a  better  world 
for  him.  He  has  the  opportunity  to  be  more  of 
a  man.  His  world  is  wider,  and  it  is  all  open 
to  him  to  go  where  he  will.  Mr.  Ruskin  may 
not  so  easity  find  his  ideal,  contented  peasant, 
but  the  man  himself  begins  to  apprehend  that 
this  is  a  world  of  ideas  as  well  as  of  food  and 
clothes,  and  I  think,  if  he  were  consulted,  he 


193 

would  have  no  desire  to  return  to  the  condition 
of  his  ancestors.  In  fact,  the  most  hopeful 
symptom  in  the  condition  of  the  English 
peasant  is  his  discontent.  For,  as  scepticism 
is  in  one  sense  the  handmaid  of  truth,  discon 
tent  is  the  mother  of  progress.  The  man  is 
comparatively  of  little  use  in  the  world  who  is 
contented. 

There  is  another  thought  pertinent  here.  It 
is  this :  that  no  man,  however  humble,  can  live 
a  full  life  if  he  lives  to  himself  alone.  He  is 
more  of  a  man,  he  lives  in  a  higher  plane  of 
thought  and  of  enjoyment,  the  more  his  com 
munications  are  extended  with  his  fellows  and 
the  wider  his  sympathies  are.  I  count  it  a 
great  thing  for  the  English  peasant,  a  solid  ad 
dition  to  his  life,  that  he  is  every  day  being  put 
into  more  intimate  relations  with  every  other 
man  on  the  globe. 

I  know  it  is  said  that  these  are  only  vague 
and  sentimental  notions  of  progress — notions 
of  a  "  salvation  by  machinery."  Let  us  pass  to 
something  that  may  be  less  vague,  even  if  it  be 
more  sentimental.  For  a  hundred  years  we 
have  reckoned  it  progress,  that  the  people  were 
taking  part  in  government.  We  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  faith  in  the  proposition  put  forth 
at  Philadelphia  a  century  ago,  that  men  are,  in 

13 


194  RELATION   OF    LITEKATUEE   TO   LIFE 

effect,  equal  in  political  rights.  Out  of  this 
simple  proposition  springs  logically  the  exten 
sion  of  suffrage,  and  a  universal  education,  in 
order  that  this  important  function  of  a  govern 
ment  by  the  people  may  be  exercised  intel 
ligently. 

Now  we  are  told  by  the  most  accomplished 
English  essayists  that  this  is  a  mistake,  that  it 
is  change,  but  no  progress.  Indeed,  there  are 
philosophers  in  America  who  think  so.  At 
least  I  infer  so  from  the  fact  that  Mr.  Froude 
fathers  one  of  his  definitions  of  our  condition 
upon  an  American.  "When  a  block  of  printer's 
type  is  by  accident  broken  up  and  disintegrat 
ed,  it  falls  into  what  is  called  "  pi."  The  "pi," 
a  mere  chaos,  is  afterwards  sorted  and  distrib 
uted,  preparatory  to  being  built  up  into  fresh 
combinations.  "A  distinguished  American 
friend,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  describes  Democra 
cy  as  making  pi."  It  is  so  witty  a  sarcasm  that 
I  almost  think  Mr.  Froude  manufactured  it 
himself.  "Well,  we  have  been  making  this  "pi" 
for  a  hundred  years ;  it  seems  to  be  a  national 
dish  in  considerable  favor  with  the  rest  of  the 
world — even  such  ancient  nations  as  China  and 
Japan  want  a  piece  of  it. 

Now,  of  course,  no  form  of  human  govern 
ment  is  perfect,  or  anything  like  it,  but  I  should 


195 

be  willing  to  submit  the  question  to  an  Eng 
lish  traveller,  even  whether,  on  the  whole,  the 
people  of  the  United  States  do  not  have  as  fair 
a  chance  in  life  and  feel  as  little  the  oppression 
of  government  as  any  other  in  the  world; 
whether  anywhere  the  burdens  are  more  lifted 
off  men's  shoulders. 

This  infidelity  to  popular  government  and 
unbelief  in  any  good  results  to  come  from  it 
are  not,  unfortunately,  confined  to  the  English 
essayists.  I  am  not  sure  but  the  notion  is 
growing  in  what  is  called  the  intellectual  class, 
that  it  is  a  mistake  to  intrust  the  government 
to  the  ignorant  many,  and  that  it  can  only  be 
lodged  safely  in  the  hands  of  the  wise  few. 
We  hear  the  corruptions  of  the  times  attrib 
uted  to  universal  suffrage.  Yet  these  corrup 
tions  certainly  are  not  peculiar  to  the  United 
States.  It  is  also  said  here,  as  it  is  in  Eng 
land,  that  our  diffused  and  somewhat  super 
ficial  education  is  merely  unfitting  the  mass 
of  men,  who  must  be  laborers,  for  any  useful 
occupation. 

This  argument,  reduced  to  plain  terms,  is 
simply  this:  that  the  mass  of  mankind  are 
unfit  to  decide  properly  their  own  political 
and  social  condition ;  and  that  for  the  mass 
of  mankind  any  but  a  very  limited  mental  de- 


196  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

velopment  is  to  be  deprecated.  It  would  be 
enough  to  say  of  this,  that  class  government 
and  popular  ignorance  have  been  tried  for  so 
many  ages,  and  always  with  disaster  and  fail 
ure  in  the  end,  that  I  should  think  phiktn- 
thropical  historians  would  be  tired  of  rec 
ommending  them.  But  there  is  more  to  be 
said. 

I  feel  that  as  a  resident  on  earth,  part  owner 
of  it  for  a  time,  unavoidably  a  member  of  so 
ciety,  I  have  a  right  to  a  voice  in  determining 
what  my  condition  and  what  my  chance  in  life 
shall  be.  I  may  be  ignorant,  I  should  be  a  very 
poor  ruler  of  other  people,  but  I  am  better 
capable  of  deciding  some  things  that  touch 
me  nearly  than  another  is.  By  what  logic 
can  I  say  that  I  should  have  a  part  in  the  con 
duct  of  this  world  and  that  my  neighbor  should 
not  ?  Who  is  to  decide  what  degree  of  intelli 
gence  shall  fit  a  man  for  a  share  in  the  govern 
ment  ?  How  are  we  to  select  the  few  capable 
men  that  are  to  rule  all  the  rest  ?  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  men  have  been  rulers  who  had  neither 
the  average  intelligence  nor  virtue  of  the  peo 
ple  they  governed.  And,  as  a  matter  of  his 
torical  experience,  a  class  in  power  has  always 
sought  its  own  benefit  rather  than  that  of  the 
whole  people.  Lunacy,  extraordinary  stupid- 


197 

ity,  and  crime  aside,  a  man  is  the  best  guardian 
of  his  own  liberty  and  rights. 

The  English  critics,  who  say  we  have  taken 
the  government  from  the  capable  few  and  given 
it  to  the  people,  speak  of  universal  suffrage  as 
a  quack  panacea  of  this  "  era  of  progress."  But 
it  is  not  the  manufactured  panacea  of  any  the 
orist  or  philosopher  whatever.  It  is  the  nat 
ural  result  of  a  diffused  knowledge  of  human 
rights  and  of  increasing  intelligence.  It  is 
nothing  against  it  that  Napoleon  III.  used  a 
mockery  of  it  to  govern  France.  It  is  not  a 
device  of  the  closet,  but  a  method  of  govern 
ment,  which  has  naturally  suggested  itself  to 
men  as  they  have  grown  into  a  feeling  of  self- 
reliance  and  a  consciousness  that  they  have 
some  right  in  the  decision  of  their  own  destiny 
in  the  world.  It  is  true  that  suffrage  peculiarly 
fits  a  people  virtuous  and  intelligent.  But 
there  has  not  yet  been  invented  any  govern 
ment  in  which  a  people  would  thrive  who 
were  ignorant  and  vicious. 

Our  foreign  critics  seem  to  regard  our  "Amer 
ican  system,"  by-the-way,  as  a  sort  of  invention 
or  patent -right,  upon  which  we  are  experi 
menting  ;  forgetting  that  it  is  as  legitimate  a 
growth  oat  of  our  circumstances  as  the  English 
system  is  out  of  its  antecedents.  Our  system 


198  EELATION    OF    LITEKATUEE    TO    LIFE 

is  not  the  product  of  theorists  or  closet  philos 
ophers  ;  but  it  was  ordained  in  substance  and 
inevitable  from  the  day  the  first  "  town  meet 
ing"  assembled  in  New  England,  and  it  was 
not  in  the  power  of  Hamilton  or  any  one  else 
to  make  it  otherwise. 

So  you  must  have  education,  now  you  have 
the  ballot,  say  the  critics  of  this  era  of  prog 
ress  ;  and  this  is  another  of  your  cheap  inven 
tions.  Not  that  we  undervalue  book  knowl 
edge.  Oh  no !  but  it  really  seems  to  us  that  a 
good  trade,  with  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the 
Ten  Commandments  back  of  it,  would  be  the 
best  thing  for  most  of  you.  You  must  work 
for  a  living  anyway ;  and  why,  now,  should 
you  unsettle  your  minds  ? 

This  is  such  an  astounding  view  of  human 
life  and  destiny  that  I  do  not  know  what  to 
say  to  it.  Did  it  occur  to  Mr.  Froude  to  ask 
the  man  whether  he  would  be  contented  with 
a  good  trade  and  the  Ten  Commandments? 
Perhaps  the  man  would  like  eleven  command 
ments  ?  And,  if  he  gets  hold  of  the  eleventh,  he 
may  want  to  know  something  more  about  his 
fellow-men,  a  little  geography  maybe,  and  some 
of  Mr.  Froude's  history,  and  thus  he  may  be  led 
off  into  literature,  and  the  Lord  knows  where. 

The    inference    is    that    education  —  book 


199 

fashion — will  unfit  the  man  for  useful  work. 
Mr.  Froude  here  again  stops  at  a  half-truth. 
As  a  general  thing,  intelligence  is  useful  in 
any  position  a  man  occupies.  But  it  is  true  that 
there  is  a  superficial  and  misdirected  sort  of 
education,  so  called,  which  makes  the  man  who 
receives  it  despise  labor ;  and  it  is  also  true 
that  in  the  present  educational  revival  there 
has  been  a  neglect  of  training  in  the  direction 
of  skilled  labor,  and  we  all  suffer  more  or  less 
from  cheap  and  dishonest  work.  But  the  way 
out  of  this,  again,  is  forward,  and  not  back 
ward.  It  is  a  good  sign,  and  not  a  stigma 
upon  this  era  of  progress,  that  people  desire 
education.  But  this  education  must  be  of  the 
whole  man ;  he  must  be  taught  to  work  as 
well  as  to  read,  and  he  is,  indeed,  poorly  edu 
cated  if  he  is  not  fitted  to  do  his  work  in  the 
world.  We  certainly  shall  not  have  better 
workmen  by  having  ignorant  workmen.  I 
need  not  say  that  the  real  education  is  that 
which  will  best  fit  a  man  for  performing  well 
his  duties  in  life.  If  Mr.  Froude,  instead  of 
his  plaint  over  the  scarcity  of  good  mechanics, 
and  of  the  Ten  Commandments  in  England, 
had  recommended  the  establishment  of  indus 
trial  schools,  he  would  have  spoken  more  to 
the  purpose. 


200  BELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

I  should  say  that  the  fashionable  scepticism 
of  to-day,  here  and  in  England,  is  in  regard  to 
universal  suffrage  and  the  capacity  of  the  peo 
ple  to  govern  themselves.  The  whole  system  is 
the  sharp  invention  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and 
others,  by  which  crafty  demagogues  can  rule. 
Instead  of  being,  as  we  have  patriotically  sup 
posed,  a  real  progress  in  human  development, 
it  is  only  a  fetich,  which  is  becoming  rapidly  a 
failure.  Now,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in 
the  assertion  that,  whatever  the  form  of  gov 
ernment,  the  ablest  men,  or  the  strongest,  or 
the  most  cunning  in  the  nation,  will  rule.  And 
yet  it  is  true  that  in  a  popular  government, 
like  this,  the  humblest  citizen,  if  he  is  wronged 
or  oppressed,  has  in  his  hands  a  readier  instru 
ment  of  redress  than  he  has  ever  had  in  any 
form  of  government.  And  it  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  all  is 
perhaps  the  only  safeguard  against  the  tyranny 
of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  few.  It  is  true 
that  bad  men  can  band  together  and  be  de 
structive  ;  but  so  they  can  in  any  government. 
Revolution  by  ballot  is  much  safer  than  revo 
lution  by  violence  ;  and,  granting  that  human 
nature  is  selfish,  when  the  whole  people  are 
the  government  selfishness  is  on  the  side  of 
the  government.  Can  you  mention  any  class 


201 

in  this  country  whose  interest  it  is  to  overturn 
the  government  ?  And,  then,  as  to  the  wis 
dom  of  the  popular  decisions  by  the  ballot  in 
this  country.  Look  carefully  at  all  the  Presi 
dential  elections  from  Washington's  down,  and 
say,  in  the  light  of  history,  if  the  popular  de 
cision  has  not,  every  time,  been  the  best  for 
the  country.  It  may  not  have  seemed  so  to 
some  of  us  at  the  time,  but  I  think  it  is  true, 
and  a  very  significant  fact. 

Of  course,  in  this  affirmation  of  belief  that 
one  hundred  years  of  popular  government  in 
this  country  is  a  real  progress  for  humanity, 
and  not  merely  a  change  from  the  rule  of  the 
fit  to  the  rule  of  the  cunning,  we  cannot  for 
get  that  men  are  pretty  much  everywhere  the 
same,  and  that  we  have  abundant  reason  for 
national  humility.  We  are  pretty  well  aware 
that  ours  is  not  an  ideal  state  of  society,  and 
should  be  so.  even  if  the  English  who  pass  by 
did  not  revile  us,  wagging  their  heads.  We 
might  differ  with  them  about  the  causes  of  our 
disorders.  Doubtless,  extended  suffrage  has 
produced  certain  results.  It  seems,  strangely 
enough,  to  have  escaped  the  observation  of 
our  English  friends  that  to  suffrage  was  due 
the  late  horse  disease.  No  one  can  discover 
any  other  cause  for  it.  But  there  is  a  cause 


202  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

for  the  various  phenomena  of  this  period  of 
shoddy,  of  inflated  speculation,  of  disturbance 
of  all  values,  social,  moral,  political,  and  ma 
terial,  quite  sufficient  in  the  light  of  history 
to  account  for  them.  It  is  not  suffrage ;  it  is 
an  irredeemable  paper  currency.  It  has  borne 
its  usual  fruit  with  us,  and  neither  foreign  nor 
home  critics  can  shift  the  responsibility  of  it 
upon  our  system  of  government.  Yes,  it  is 
true,  we  have  contrived  to  fill  the  world  with 
our  scandals  of  late.  I  might  refer  to  a  loose 
commercial  and  political  morality;  to  betrayals 
of  popular  trust  in  politics ;  to  corruptions  in 
legislatures  and  in  corporations ;  to  an  abuse 
of  power  in  the  public  press,  which  has  hardly 
yet  got  itself  adjusted  to  its  sudden  accession 
of  enormous  influence.  We  complain  of  its 
injustice  to  individuals  sometimes.  We  might 
imagine  that  something  like  this  would  occur. 

A  newspaper  one  day  says :  "  We  are  ex 
ceedingly  pained  to  hear  that  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Blank,  who  is  running  for  Congress  in  the 
First  District,  has  permitted  his  aged  grand 
mother  to  go  to  the  town  poor-house.  What 
renders  this  conduct  inexplicable  is  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Blank  is  a  man  of  large  fortune." 

The  next  day  the  newspaper  says :  "  The 
Hon.  Mr.  Blank  has  not  seen  fit  to  deny  the 


203 

damaging  accusation  in  regard  to  the  treat 
ment  of  his  grandmother." 

The  next  day  the  newspaper  says :  "  Mr. 
Blank  is  still  silent.  He  is  probably  aware 
that  he  cannot  afford  to  rest  under  this  grave 
charge." 

The  next  day  the  newspaper  asks :  "  Where's 
Blank?  Has  he  fled?" 

At  last,  goaded  by  these  remarks,  and  most 
unfortunately  for  himself,  Mr.  Blank  writes  to 
the  newspaper  and  most  indignantly  denies 
the  charge  ;  he  never  sent  his  grandmother  to 
the  poor-house. 

Thereupon  the  newspaper  says,  "  Of  course, 
a  rich  man  who  would  put  his  own  grand 
mother  in  the  poor-house  would  deny  it.  Our 
informant  was  a  gentleman  of  character.  Mr. 
Blank  rests  the  matter  on  his  unsupported 
word.  It  is  a  question  of  veracity." 

Or,  perhaps,  Mr.  Blank,  more  unfortunately 
for  himself,  begins  by  making  an  affidavit, 
wherein  he  swears  that  he  never  sent  his 
grandmother  to  the  poor-house,  and  that,  in 
point  of  fact,  he  has  not  any  grandmother 
whatever. 

The  newspaper  then,  in  language  that  is 
now  classical,  "goes  for"  Mr.  Blank.  It  says, 
"  Mr.  Blank  resorts  to  the  common  device  of 


204  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

the  rogue — the  affidavit.  If  he  had  been  con 
scious  of  rectitude,  would  he  not  have  relied 
upon  his  simple  denial?'' 

Now,  if  an  extreme  case  like  this  could  oc 
cur,  it  would  be  bad  enough.  But,  in  our  free 
society,  the  remedy  would  be  at  hand.  The 
constituents  of  Mr.  Blank  would  elect  him  in 
triumph.  The  newspaper  would  lose  public 
confidence  and  support  and  learn  to  use  its 
position  more  justly.  What  I  mean  to  indi 
cate  by  such  an  extreme  instance  as  this  is, 
that  in  our  very  license  of  individual  freedom 
there  is  finally  a  correcting  power. 

We  might  pursue  this  general  subject  of 
progress  by  a  comparison  of  the  society  of 
this  country  now  with  that  fifty  years  ago.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  every  essential  this  is 
better  than  that,  in  manners,  in  morality,  in 
charity  and  toleration,  in  education  and  re 
ligion.  I  know  the  standard  of  morality  is 
higher.  I  know  the  churches  are  purer.  Not 
fifty  years  ago,  in  a  New  England  town,  a 
distinguished  doctor  of  divinity,  the  pastor  of 
a  leading  church,  was  part  owner  in  a  dis 
tillery.  He  was  a  great  light  in  his  denom 
ination,  but  he  was  an  extravagant  liver,  and, 
being  unable  to  pay  his  debts,  he  was  arrest 
ed  and  put  into  jail,  with  the  liberty  of  the 


205 

"  limits."  In  order  not  to  interrupt  his  minis 
terial  work,  the  jail  limits  were  made  to  include 
his  house  and  his  church,  so  that  he  could 
still  go  in  and  out  before  his  people.  I  do  not 
think  that  could  occur  anywhere  in  the  United 
States  to-day. 

I  will  close  these  fragmentary  suggestions 
by  saying  that  I,  for  one,  should  like  to  see 
this  country  a  century  from  now.  Those  who 
live  then  will  doubtless  say  of  this  period  that 
it  was  crude,  and  rather  disorderly,  and  fer 
menting  with  a  great  many  new  projects ;  but 
I  have  great  faith  that  they  will  also  say  that 
the  present  extending  notion,  that  the  best 
government  is  for  the  people,  by  the  people, 
was  in  the  line  of  sound  progress.  I  should 
expect  to  find  faith  in  humanity  greater  and 
not  less  than  it  is  now,  and  I  should  not  ex 
pect  to  find  that  Mr.  Froude's  mournful  ex 
pectation  had  been  realized,  and  that  the 
belief  in  a  life  beyond  the  grave  had  been 
withdrawn. 

(1874.) 


ENGLAND 


ENGLAND 

ENGLAND  has  played  a  part  in  modern  his 
tory  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  its  size. 
The  whole  of  Great  Britain,  including  Ire 
land,  has  only  eleven  thousand  more  square 
miles  than  Italy ;  and  England  and  Wales 
alone  are  not  half  so  large  as  Italy.  England 
alone  is  about  the  size  of  North  Carolina.  It 
is,  as  Franklin,  in  1763,  wrote  to  Mary  Steven 
son  in  London,  "  that  petty  island  which,  com 
pared  to  America,  is  but  a  stepping-stone  in  a 
brook,  scarce  enough  of  it  above  water  to 
keep  one's  shoes  dry." 

A  considerable  portion  of  it  is  under  water, 
or  water-soaked  a  good  part  of  the  year,  and 
I  suppose  it  has  more  acres  for  breeding  frogs 
than  any  other  northern  land,  except  Holland. 
Old  Harrison  says  that  the  North  Britons 
when  overcome  by  hunger  used  to  creep  into 
the  marshes  till  the  water  was  up  to  their 
chins  and  there  remain  a  long  time,  "  onlie  to 
qualifie  the  heats  of  their  stomachs  by  vio- 


14 


210  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

lence,  which  otherwise  would  have  wrought 
and  beene  readie  to  oppresse  them  for  hunger 
and  want  of  sustinance."  It  lies  so  far  north — 
the  latitude  of  Labrador — that  the  winters  are 
long  and  the  climate  inhospitable.  It  would 
be  severely  cold  if  the  Gulf  Stream  did  not 
make  it  always  damp  and  curtain  it  with 
clouds.  In  some  parts  the  soil  is  heavy  with 
water,  in  others  it  is  only  a  thin  stratum 
above  the  chalk ;  in  fact,  agricultural  produc 
tion  could  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  there  until 
fortunes  made  in  India  and  in  other  foreign 
adventure  enabled  the  owners  of  the  land  to 
pile  it  knee -deep  with  fertilizers  from  Peru 
and  elsewhere.  Thanks  to  accumulated  wealth 
and  the  Gulf  Stream,  its  turf  is  green  and  soft ; 
figs,  which  will  not  mature  with  us  north  of  the 
capes  of  Virginia,  ripen  in  sheltered  nooks  in 
Oxford,  and  the  large  and  unfrequent  straw 
berry  sometimes  appears  upon  the  dinner- 
table  in  such  profusion  that  the  guests  can 
indulge  in  one  apiece. 

Yet  this  small,  originally  infertile  island  has 
been  for  two  centuries,  and  is  to-day,  the  most 
vital  influence  on  the  globe.  Cast  your  eye 
over  the  world  upon  her  possessions,  insular 
and  continental,  into  any  one  of  which,  almost, 
England  might  be  dropped,  with  slight  dis- 


ENGLAND  211 

turbance,  as  you  would  transfer  a  hanging 
garden.  For  any  parallel  to  her  power  and 
possessions  you  must  go  back  to  ancient 
Eome.  Egypt  under  Thotmes  and  Seti  over 
ran  the  then  known  world  and  took  tribute  of 
it ;  but  it  was  a  temporary  wave  of  conquest 
and  not  an  assimilation.  Eome  sent  her  laws 
and  her  roads  to  the  end  of  the  earth,  and 
made  an  empire  of  it ;  but  it  was  an  empire  of 
barbarians  largely,  of  dynasties  rather  than 
of  peoples.  The  dynasties  fought,  the  dynas 
ties  submitted,  and  the  dynasties  paid  the 
tribute.  The  modern  "people"  did  not  exist. 
One  battle  decided  the  fate  of  half  the  world 
—it  might  be  lost  or  won  for  a  woman's  eyes ; 
the  flight  of  a  chieftain  might  settle  the  fate 
of  a  province ;  a  campaign  might  determine 
the  allegiance  of  half  Asia.  There  was  but 
one  compact,  disciplined,  law-ordered  nation, 
and  that  had  its  seat  on  the  Tiber. 

Under  what  different  circumstances  did 
England  win  her  position !  Before  she  came 
to  the  front,  Venice  controlled,  and  almost 
monopolized,  the  trade  of  the  Orient.  When 
she  entered  upon  her  career  Spain  was  almost 
omnipotent  in  Europe,  and  was  in  possession 
of  more  than  half  the  Western  world ;  and  be 
sides  Spain,  England  had,  wherever  she  went, 


212  RELATION    OF    LITEKATUEE   TO    LIFE 

to  contend  for  a  foothold  with  Portugal,  skilled 
in  trade  and  adventure ;  and  with  Holland,  rich, 
and  powerful  on  the  sea.  That  is  to  say,  she 
met  everywhere  civilizations  old  and  techni 
cally  her  superior.  Of  the  ruling  powers,  she 
was  the  least  in  arts  and  arms.  If  you  will 
take  time  to  fill  out  this  picture,  you  will  have 
some  conception  of  the  marvellous  achieve 
ments  of  England,  say  since  the  abdication  of 
the  Emperor  Charles  Y. 

This  little  island  is  to-day  the  centre  of  the 
wealth,  of  the  solid  civilization,  of  the  world. 
I  will  not  say  of  art,  of  music,  of  the  lighter 
social  graces  that  make  life  agreeable ;  but  I 
will  say  of  the  moral  forces  that  make  prog 
ress  possible  and  worth  while.  Of  this  island 
the  centre  is  London ;  of  London  the  heart  is 
"  the  City,"  and  in  the  City  you  can  put  your 
finger  on  one  spot  where  the  pulse  of  the 
world  is  distinctly  felt  to  beat.  The  Moslem 
regards  the  Kaaba  at  Mecca  as  the  centre  of 
the  universe;  but  that  is  only  a  theological 
phrase.  The  centre  of  the  world  is  the  Bank 
of  England  in  Leadenhall  Street.  There  is  not 
an  occurrence,  not  a  conquest  or  a  defeat,  a 
revolution,  a  panic,  a  famine,  an  abundance, 
not  a  change  in  value  of  money  or  material, 
no  depression  or  stoppage  in  trade,  no  recov- 


ENGLAND  213 

ery,  no  political,  and  scarcely  any  great  relig 
ious  movement — say  the  civil  deposition  of  the 
Pope  or  the  Wannabee  revival  in  Arabia  and 
India — that  does  not  report  itself  instantly  at 
this  sensitive  spot.  Other  capitals  feel  a  local 
influence;  this  feels  all  the  local  influences. 
Put  your  ear  at  the  door  of  the  Bank  or  the 
Stock  Exchange  near  by,  and  you  hear  the 
roar  of  the  world. 

But  this  is  not  all,  nor  the  most  striking 
thing,  nor  the  greatest  contrast  to  the  em 
pires  of  Rome  and  of  Spain.  The  civilization 
that  has  gone  forth  from  England  is  a  self- 
sustaining  one,  vital  to  grow  where  it  is 
planted,  in  vast  communities,  in  an  order  that 
does  not  depend,  as  that  of  the  Roman  world 
did,  upon  edicts  and  legions  from  the  capital. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  that  if  the  land 
empire  of  England  is  not  so  vast  as  that  of 
Rome,  England  has  for  two  centuries  been 
mistress  of  the  seas,  with  all  the  consequences 
of  that  opportunity  —  consequences  to  trade 
beyond  computation.  And  we  must  add  to 
all  this  that  an  intellectual  and  moral  power 
has  been  put  forth  from  England  clear  round 
the  globe,  and  felt  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
English  tongue. 

How  is  it  that  England  has  attained  this 


214  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

supremacy — a  supremacy  in  vain  disputed  on 
land  and  on  sea  by  France,  but  now  threat 
ened  by  an  equipped  and  disciplined  Ger 
many,  by  an  unformed  Colossus — a  Slav  and 
Tartar  conglomerate ;  and  perhaps  by  one  of 
her  own  children,  the  United  States  ?  I  will 
mention  some  of  the  things  that  have  deter 
mined  England's  extraordinary  career;  and 
they  will  help  us  to  consider  her  prospects. 
I  name: 

1.  The  Race.  It  is  a  mixed  race,  but  with 
certain  dominant  qualities,  which  we  call,  loose 
ly,  Teutonic ;  certainly  the  most  aggressive, 
tough,  and  vigorous  people  the  world  has  seen. 
It  does  not  shrink  from  any  climate,  from  any 
exposure,  from  any  geographic  condition ;  yet 
its  choice  of  migration  and  of  residence  has 
mainly  been  on  the  grass  belt  of  the  globe, 
where  soil  and  moisture  produce  good  turf, 
where  a  changing  and  unequal  climate,  with 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  calls  out  the  phys 
ical  resources,  stimulates  invention,  and  re 
quires  an  aggressive  and  defensive  attitude  of 
mind  and  body.  The  early  history  of  this 
people  is  marked  by  two  things : 

(1)  Town  and  village  organizations,  nurs 
eries  of  law,  order,  and  self-dependence,  nuclei 
of  power,  capable  of  indefinite  expansion,  lead- 


ENGLAND  215 

ing  directly  to  a  free  and  a  strong  govern 
ment,  the  breeders  of  civil  liberty. 

(2)  Individualism  in  religion,  Protestantism 
in  the  widest  sense :  I  mean  by  this,  cultiva 
tion  of  the  individual  conscience  as  against 
authority.  This  trait  was  as  marked  in  this 
sturdy  people  in  Catholic  England  as  it  is  in 
Protestant  England.  It  is  in  the  blood.  Eng 
land  never  did  submit  to  Rome,  not  even  as 
France  did,  though  the  Gallic  Church  held  out 
well.  Take  the  struggle  of  Henry  II.  and  the 
hierarchy.  Read  the  fight  with  prerogative 
all  along.  The  English  Church  never  could 
submit.  It  is  a  shallow  reading  of  history  to 
attribute  the  final  break  with  Rome  to  the  un 
bridled  passion  of  Henry  VIII. ;  that  was  an 
occasion  only  :  if  it  had  not  been  that,  it  would 
have  been  something  else. 

Here  we  have  the  two  necessary  traits  in  the 
character  of  a  great  people :  the  love  and  the 
habit  of  civil  liberty  and  religious  conviction 
and  independence.  Allied  to  these  is  another 
trait — truthfulness.  To  speak  the  truth  in 
word  and  action,  to  the  verge  of  bluntness  and 
offence — and  with  more  relish  sometimes  be 
cause  it  is  individually  obnoxious  and  unlovely 
—is  an  English  trait,  clearly  to  be  traced  in 
the  character  of  this  people,  notwithstanding 


216  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

the  equivocations  of  Elizabethan  diplomacy, 
the  proverbial  lying  of  English  shopkeepers, 
and  the  fraudulent  adulteration  of  English 
manufactures.  Not  to  lie  is  perhaps  as  much 
a  matter  of  insular  pride  as  of  morals ;  to  lie 
is  unbecoming  an  Englishman.  When  Captain 
Burnaby  was  on  his  way  to  Khiva  he  would 
tolerate  no  Oriental  exaggeration  of  his  army 
rank,  although  a  higher  title  would  have 
smoothed  his  way  and  added  to  his  consider 
ation.  An  English  official  who  was  a  captive 
at  Bokhara  (or  Khiva)  was  offered  his  life  by 
the  Khan  if  he  would  abjure  the  Christian 
faith  and  say  he  was  a  Moslem ;  but  he  pre 
ferred  death  rather  than  the  advantage  of  a 
temporary  equivocation.  I  do  not  suppose 
that  he  was  a  specially  pious  man  at  home  or 
that  he  was  a  martyr  to  religious  principle, 
but  for  the  moment  Christianity  stood  for 
England  and  English  honor  and  civilization. 
I  can  believe  that  a  rough  English  sailor,  who 
had  not  used  a  sacred  name,  except  in  vain, 
since  he  said  his  prayer  at  his  mother's  knee, 
accepted  death  under  like  circumstances  rath 
er  than  say  he  was  not  a  Christian. 

The  next  determining  cause  in  England's 
career  is 

II.  The  insular  position.   Poor  as  the  island 


ENGLAND  217 

was,   this   was   the    opportunity.     See  what 
came  of  it : 

(1)  Maritime   opportunity.      The    irregular 
coast -lines,  the  bays  and  harbors,  the  near 
islands  and  mainlands  invited  to  the  sea.   The 
nation  became,  per  force,  sailors — as  the  an 
cient  Greeks  were  and  the  modern  Greeks  are: 
adventurers,   discoverers  —  hardy,   ambitious, 
seeking  food  from  the  sea  and  wealth  from 
every  side. 

(2)  Their  position  protected  them.     "What 
they  got  they  could  keep ;    wealth  could  ac 
cumulate.      Invasion  was  difficult  and  prac 
tically  impossible  to  their  neighbors.    And  yet 
they  were  in  the  bustling  world,  close  to  the 
continent,  commanding  the  most  important  of 
the  navigable  seas.     The  wealth  of  Holland 
was  on  the  one  hand,  the  wealth  of  France  on 
the  other.     They  held  the  keys. 

(3)  The  insular  position  and  their  free  institu 
tions  invited  refugees  from  all  the  Continent,  ar 
tisans  and  skilled  laborers  of  all  kinds.  Hence, 
the  beginning  of  their  great  industries,  which 
made  England  rich  in  proportion  as  her  au 
thority  and  chance  of  trade  expanded  over  dis 
tant  islands  and  continents.     But  this  would 
not  have  been  possible  without  the  third  ad 
vantage  which  I  shall  mention,  and  that  is : 


218  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

III.  Coal.  England's  power  and  wealth  rest 
ed  upon  her  coal-beds.  In  this  bounty  nature 
was  more  liberal  to  the  tight  little  island 
than  to  any  other  spot  in  Western  Europe,  and 
England  took  early  advantage  of  it.  To  be 
sure,  her  coal-field  is  small  compared  with 
that  of  the  United  States — an  area  of  only 
11,900  square  miles  to  our  192,000.  But  Ger 
many  has  only  1770 ;  Belgium,  510 ;  France, 
2086 ;  and  Russia  only  in  her  expansion  of  ter 
ritory  leads  Europe  in  this  respect,  and  has 
now  30,000  square  miles  of  coal-beds.  But 
see  the  use  England  makes  of  this  material: 
in  1877,  she  took  out  of  the  ground  134,179,968 
tons.  The  United  States  the  same  year  took 
out  50,000,000  tons;  Germany,  48,000,000; 
France,  16,000,000 ;  Belgium,  14,000,000,  This 
tells  the  story  of  the  heavy  industries. 

We  have  considered  as  elements  of  national 
greatness  the  race  itself,  the  favorable  position, 
and  the  material  to  work  with.  I  need  not 
enlarge  upon  the  might  and  the  possessions  of 
England,  nor  the  general  beneficence  of  her 
occupation  wherever  she  has  established  fort, 
factory,  or  colony.  With  her  flag  go  much 
injustice,  domineering,  and  cruelty;  but,  on 
the  whole,  the  best  elements  of  civilization. 

The  intellectual  domination  of  England  has 


ENGLAND  219 

been  as  striking  as  the  physical.  It  is  stamped 
upon  all  her  colonies ;  it  has  by  no  means  dis 
appeared  in  the  United  States.  For  more  than 
fifty  years  after  our  independence  we  import 
ed  our  intellectual  food — with  the  exception 
of  politics,  and  theology  in  certain  forms  — 
and  largely  our  ethical  guidance  from  England. 
We  read  English  books,  or  imitations  of  the 
English  way  of  looking  at  things ;  we  even  ac 
cepted  the  English  caricatures  of  our  own  life 
as  genuine — notably  in  the  case  of  the  so- 
called  typical  Yankee.  It  is  only  recently  that 
our  writers  have  begun  to  describe  our  own 
life  as  it  is,  and  that  readers  begin  to  feel  that 
our  society  may  be  as  interesting  in  print  as 
that  English  society  which  they  have  been  all 
their  lives  accustomed  to  read  about.  The 
reading -books  of  children  in  schools  were 
filled  with  English  essays,  stories,  English 
views  of  life :  it  was  the  English  heroines  over 

O 

whose  woes  the  girls  wept ;  it  was  of  the  Eng 
lish  heroes  that  the  boys  declaimed.  I  do  not 
know  how  much  the  imagination  has  to  do  in 
shaping  the  national  character,  but  for  half  a 
century  English  writers,  by  poems  and  novels, 
controlled  the  imagination  of  this  country. 
The  principal  reading  then,  as  now — and  per 
haps  more  then  than  now  —  was  fiction,  and 


220  RELATION    OF   LITEEATUKE    TO   LIFE 

nearly  all  of  this  England  supplied.  "We  took 
in  with  it,  it  will  be  noticed,  not  only  the  ro 
mance  and  gilding  of  chivalry  and  legitimacy, 
such  as  Scott  gives  us,  but  constant  instruction 
in  a  society  of  ranks  and  degrees,  orders  of  no 
bility  and  commonalty,  a  fixed  social  status,  a 
well-ordered,  and  often  attractive,  permanent 
social  inequality,  a  state  of  life  and  relations 
based  upon  lingering  feudal  conditions  and  prej 
udices.  The  background  of  all  English  fic 
tion  is  monarchical;  however  liberal  it  may  be, 
it  must  be  projected  upon  the  existing  order 
of  things.  We  have  not  been  examining  these 
foreign  social  conditions  with  that  simple  curi 
osity  which  leads  us  to  look  into  the  social  life 
of  Russia  as  it  is  depicted  in  Russian  novels; 
we  have,  on  the  contrary,  absorbed  them  gen 
eration  after  generation  as  part  of  our  intel 
lectual  development,  so  that  the  novels  and  the 
other  English  literature  must  have  had  a  vast 
influence  in  moulding  our  mental  character,  in 
shaping  our  thinking  upon  the  political  as  well 
as  the  social  constitution  of  states. 

For  a  long  time  the  one  American  counter 
action,  almost  the  only,  to  this  English  influ 
ence  was  the  newspaper,  which  has  always 
kept  alive  and  diffused  a  distinctly  American 
spirit — not  always  lovely  or  modest,  but  na- 


ENGLAND  221 

tional.  The  establishment  of  periodicals  which 
could  afford  to  pay  for  fiction  written  about 
our  society  and  from  the  American  point  of 
view  has  had  a  great  effect  on  our  literary 
emancipation.  The  wise  men  whom  we  elect 
to  make  our  laws — and  who  represent  us  in 
tellectually  and  morally  a  good  deal  better 
than  we  sometimes  like  to  admit — have  al 
ways  gone  upon  the  theory,  with  regard  to 
the  reading  for  the  American  people,  that  the 
chief  requisite  of  it  was  cheapness,  with  no  re 
gard  to  its  character  so  far  as  it  is  a  shaper 
of  notions  about  government  and  social  life. 
"What  educating  influence  English  fiction  was 
having  upon  American  life  they  have  not  in 
quired,  so  long  as  it  was  furnished  cheap,  and 
its  authors  were  cheated  out  of  any  copyright 
on  it. 

At  the  North,  thanks  to  a  free  press  and 
periodicals,  to  a  dozen  reform  agitations,  and 
to  the  intellectual  stir  generally  accompanying 
industries  and  commerce,  we  have  been  devel 
oping  an  immense  intellectual  activity,  a  por 
tion  of  which  has  found  expression  in  fiction, 
in  poetry,  in  essays,  that  are  instinct  with 
American  life  and  aspiration  ;  so  that  now  for 
over  thirty  years,  in  the  field  of  literature, 
we  have  had  a  vigorous  offset  to  the  English 


222  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO   LIFE 

intellectual  domination  of  which  I  spoke. 
How  far  this  has  in  the  past  moulded  Ameri 
can  thought  and  sentiment,  in  what  degree  it 
should  be  held  responsible  for  the  infidelity  in 
regard  to  our  "American  experiment,"  I  will 
not  undertake  to  say.  The  South  furnishes  a 
very  interesting  illustration  in  this  connection. 
When  the  civil  war  broke  down  the  barriers 
of  intellectual  non- intercourse  behind  which 
the  South  had  ensconced  itself,  it  was  found 
to  be  in  a  colonial  condition.  Its  libraries 
were  English  libraries,  mostly  composed  of 
old  English  literature.  Its  literary  growth 
stopped  with  the  reign  of  George  III.  Its 
latest  news  was  the  Spectator  and  the  Tatler. 
The  social  order  it  covered  was  that  of  mo 
narchical  England,  undisturbed  by  the  fiery 
philippics  of  Byron  or  Shelley  or  the  radical 
ism  of  a  manufacturing  age.  Its  chivalry  was 
an  imitation  of  the  antiquated  age  of  lords 
and  ladies,  and  tournaments,  and  buckram  cour 
tesies,  when  men  were  as  touchy  to  fight,  at 
the  lift  of  an  eyelid  or  the  drop  of  a  glove,  as 
Brian  de  Bois-Guilbert,  and  as  ready  for  a 
drinking-bout  as  Christopher  North.  The 
intellectual  stir  of  the  North,  with  its  disor 
ganizing  radicalism,  was  rigorously  excluded, 
and  with  it  all  the  new  life  pouring  out  of 


ENGLAND  223 

its  presses.  The  South  was  tied  to  a  repub 
lic,  but  it  was  not  republican,  either  in  its  pol 
itics  or  its  social  order.  It  was,  in  its  mental 
constitution,  in  its  prejudices,  in  its  tastes,  ex 
actly  what  you  would  expect  a  people  to  be, 
excluded  from  the  circulation  of  free  ideas  by 
its  system  of  slavery,  and  fed  on  the  English 
literature  of  a  century  ago.  I  dare  say  that 
a  majority  of  its  reading  public,  at  any  time, 
would  have  preferred  a  monarchical  system 
and  a  hierarchy  of  rank. 

To  return  to  England.  I  have  said  that  Eng 
lish  domination  usually  carries  the  best  ele 
ments  of  civilization.  Yet  it  must  be  owned 
that  England  has  pursued  her  magnificent 
career  in  a  policy  often  insolent  and  brutal, 
and  generally  selfish.  Scarcely  any  consider 
ations  have  stood  in  the  way  of  her  trade  and 
profit.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  her  opium  cult 
ure  in  India,  which  is  a  proximate  cause  of 
famine  in  district  after  district,  nor  upon  her 
forcing  the  drug  upon  China — a  policy  dis 
graceful  to  a  Christian  queen  and  people.  We 
have  only  just  got  rid  of  slavery,  sustained  so 
long  by  Biblical  and  official  sanction,  and  may 
not  yet  set  up  as  critics.  But  I  will  refer  to  a 
case  with  which  all  are  familiar — England's 
treatment  of  her  American  colonies.  In  17GO 


224  RELATION    OF    LITEEATUEE    TO    LIFE 

and  onward,  when  Franklin,  the  agent  of  the 
colonies  of  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts, 
was  cooling  his  heels  in  lords'  waiting-rooms 
in  London,  America  was  treated  exactly  as 
Ireland  was — that  is,  discriminated  against  in 
every  way ;  not  allowed  to  manufacture ;  not 
permitted  to  trade  with  other  nations,  except 
under  the  most  vexatious  restrictions ;  and 
the  effort  was  continued  to  make  her  a  mere 
agricultural  producer  and  a  dependent.  All 
that  England  cared  for  us  was  that  we  should 
be  a  market  for  her  manufactures.  This  same 
selfishness  has  been  the  key-note  of  her  policy 
down  to  the  present  day,  except  as  the  force 
of  circumstances  has  modified  it.  Steadily 
pursued,  it  has  contributed  largely  to  make 
England  the  monetary  and  industrial  master 
of  the  world. 

"With  this  outline  I  pass  to  her  present  con 
dition  and  outlook. 

The  dictatorial  and  selfish  policy  has  been 
forced  to  give  way  somewhat  in  regard  to 
the  colonies.  The  spirit  of  the  age  and  the 
strength  of  the  colonies  forbid  its  exercise; 
they  cannot  be  held  by  the  old  policy.  Aus 
tralia  boldly  adopts  a  protective  tariff,  and 
her  parliament  is  only  nominally  controlled 
by  the  crown.  Canada  exacts  duties  on  Eng- 


ENGLAND  225 

lish  goods,  and  England  cannot  help  herself. 
Even  with  these  concessions,  can  England 
keep  her  great  colonies  ?  They  are  still  loyal 
in  word.  They  still  affect  English  manners 
and  English  speech,  and  draw  their  intellect 
ual  supplies  from  England.  On  the  prospect 
of  a  war  with  Russia  they  nearly  all  offered 
volunteers.  But  ever}Tbody  knows  that  alle 
giance  is  on  the  condition  of  local  autonomy. 
If  united  Canada  asks  to  go,  she  will  go.  So 
with  Australia.  It  may  be  safely  predicted 
that  England  will  never  fight  again  to  hold 
the  sovereignty  of  her  new-world  possessions 
against  their  present  occupants.  And,  in  the 
judgment  of  many  good  observers,  a  dissolu 
tion  of  the  empire,  so  far  as  the  Western  col 
onies  are  concerned,  is  inevitable,  unless  Great 
Britain,  adopting  the  plan  urged  by  Franklin, 
becomes  an  imperial  federation,  with  parlia 
ments  distinct  and  independent,  the  crown  the 
only  bond  of  union — the  crown,  and  not  the 
English  parliament,  being  the  titular  and  act 
ual  sovereign.  Sovereign  power  over  Amer 
ica  in  the  parliament  Franklin  never  would 
admit.  His  idea  was  that  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  empire  must  be  citizens,  not  some  of 
them  subjects  ruled  by  the  home  citizens. 
The  two  great  political  parties  of  England 


226  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUKE   TO   LIFE 

are  really  formed  on  lines  constructed  after 
the  passage  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832.  The 
Tories  had  been  long  in  power.  They  had 
made  many  changes  and  popular  concessions, 
but  they  resisted  parliamentary  reform.  The 
great  "Whig  lords,  who  had  tried  to  govern 
England  without  the  people  and  in  opposition 
to  the  crown  in  the  days  of  George  III.,  had 
learned  to  seek  popular  support.  The  Reform 
Bill,  which  was  ultimately  forced  through  by 
popular  pressure  and  threat  of  civil  war,  abol 
ished  the  rotten  boroughs,  gave  representa 
tion  to  the  large  manufacturing  towns  and  in 
creased  representation  to  the  counties,  and  the 
suffrage  to  all  men  who  had  paid  ten  pounds  a 
year  rent  in  boroughs,  or  in  the  counties  owned 
land  worth  ten  pounds  a  year  or  paid  fifty 
pounds  rent.  The  immediate  result  of  this 
was  to  put  power  into  the  hands  of  the  mid 
dle  classes  and  to  give  the  lower  classes  high 
hopes,  so  that,  in  1839,  the  Chartist  movement 
began,  one  demand  of  which  was  universal 
suffrage.  The  old  party  names  of  Whig  and 
Tory  had  been  dropped  and  the  two  parties 
had  assumed  their  present  appellations  of  Con 
servatives  and  Liberals.  Both  parties  had, 
however,  learned  that  there  was  no  rest  for 
any  ruling  party  except  a  popular  basis,  and 


ENGLAND  227 

the  Conservative  party  had  the  good  sense  to 
strengthen  itself  in  1867  by  carrying  through 
Mr.  Disraeli's  bill,  which  gave  the  franchise 
in  boroughs  to  all  householders  paying  rates, 
and  in  counties  to  all  occupiers  of  property 
rated  at  fifteen  pounds  a  year.  This  broaden 
ing  of  the  suffrage  places  the  power  irrevo 
cably  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  against 
whose  judgment  neither  crown  nor  ministry 
can  venture  on  any  important  step. 

In  general  terms  it  may  be  said  that  of  these 
two  great  parties  the  Conservative  wishes  to 
preserve  existing  institutions,  and  latterly  has 
leaned  to  the  prerogatives  of  the  crown,  and 
the  Liberal  is  inclined  to  progress  and  reform, 
and  to  respond  to  changes  demanded  b}^  the 
people.  Both  parties,  however,  like  parties 
elsewhere,  propose  and  oppose  measures  and 
movements,  and  accept  or  reject  policies,  sim- 
pty  to  get  office  or  keep  office.  The  Conserv 
ative  party  of  late  years,  principally  because 
it  has  the  simple  task  of  holding  back,  has 
been  better  able  to  define  its  lines  and  preserve 
a  compact  organization.  The  Liberals,  with 
a  multitude  of  reformatory  projects,  have,  of 
course,  a  less  homogeneous  organization,  and 
for  some  years  have  been  without  well-defined 
issues.  The  Conservative  aristocracy  seemed 


228  RELATION    OF   LITEKATUKE    TO    LIFE 

to  form  a  secure  alliance  with  the  farmers  and 
the  great  agricultural  interests,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  have  a  strong  hold  upon  the 
lower  classes.  In  what  his  opponents  called 
his  "  policy  of  adventure,"  Lord  Beaconsfield 
had  the  support  of  the  lower  populace.  The 
Liberal  party  is  an  incongruous  host.  On  one 
wing  are  the  Whig  lords  and  great  land-own 
ers,  who  cannot  be  expected  to  take  kindly 
to  a  land  reform  that  would  reform  them  out 
of  territorial  power ;  and  on  the  other  wing 
are  the  Kadicals,  who  would  abolish  the  pres 
ent  land  system  and  the  crown  itself,  and  in 
stitute  the  rule  of  a  democracy.  Between 
these  two  is  the  great  body  of  the  middle 
class,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  educated 
and  university  trained,  the  majorities  of  the 
manufacturing  towns,  and  perhaps,  we  may 
say,  generally  the  Nonconformists.  There  are 
some  curious  analogies  in  these  two  parties  to 
our  own  parties  before  the  war.  It  is,  perhaps, 
not  fanciful  to  suppose  that  the  Conservative 
lords  resemble  our  own  aristocratic  leaders  of 
democracy,  who  contrived  to  keep  near  the 
people  and  had  affiliations  that  secured  them 
the  vote  of  the  least  educated  portion  of  the 
voters ;  while  the  great  Liberal  lords  are  not 
unlike  our  old  aristocratic  Whigs,  of  the  cotton 


ENGLAND  229 

order,  who  have  either  little  sympathy  with 
the  people  or  little  faculty  of  showing  it.  It 
is  a  curious  fact  that  during  our  civil  war  re 
spect  for  authority  gained  us  as  much  sym 
pathy  from  the  Conservatives,  as  love  for 
freedom  (hampered  by  the  greed  of  trade  and 
rivalry  in  manufactures)  gained  us  from  the 
Liberals. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  empire.  The 
bulk  of  the  Conservative  party  would  hold  the 
colonies  if  possible,  and  pursue  an  imperial 
policy ;  while  certainly  a  large  portion  of  the 
Liberals  —  not  all,  by  any  means  —  would  let 
the  colonies  go,  and,  with  the  Manchester 
school,  hope  to  hold  England's  place  by  free- 
trade  and  active  competition.  The  imperial 
policy  may  be  said  to  have  two  branches,  in 
regard  to  which  parties  will  not  sharply  di 
vide:  one  is  the  relations  to  be  held  towards 
the  Western  colonies,  and  the  other  in  the  pol 
icy  to  be  pursued  in  the  East  in  reference  to 
India  and  to  the  development  of  the  Indian 
empire,  and  also  the  policy  of  aggression  and 
subjection  in  South  Africa. 

An  imperial  policy  does  not  necessarily 
imply  such  vagaries  as  the  forcible  detention 
of  the  forcibly  annexed  Boer  republic.  But 
everybody  sees  that  the  time  is  near  when 


230  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

England  must  say  definitely  as  to  the  imperial 
policy  generally  whether  it  will  pursue  it  or 
abandon  it.  And  it  may  be  remarked  in  pass 
ing  that  the  Gladstone  government,  thus  far, 
though  pursuing  this  policy  more  moderately 
than  the  Beaconsfield  government,  shows  no 
intention  of  abandoning  it.  Almost  every 
body  admits  that  if  it  is  abandoned  England 
must  sink  to  the  position  of  a  third-rate  power 
like  Holland.  For  what  does  abandonment 
mean?  It  means  to  have  no  weight,  except 
that  of  moral  example,  in  Continental  affairs  : 
to  relinquish  her  advantages  in  the  Mediter 
ranean  ;  to  let  Turkey  be  absorbed  by  Russia ; 
to  become  so  weak  in  India  as  to  risk  rebel 
lion  of  all  the  provinces,  and  probable  attack 
from  Russia  and  her  Central  Asian  allies.  But 
this  is  not  all.  Lost  control  in  Asia  is  lost 
trade ;  this  is  evident  in  every  foot  of  control 
Russia  has  gained  in  the  Caucasus,  about  the 
Caspian  Sea,  in  Persia.  There  Russian  manu 
factures  supplant  the  English ;  and  so  in  an 
other  quarter:  in  order  to  enjoy  the  vast 
opening  trade  of  Africa,  England  must  be  on 
hand  with  an  exhibition  of  power.  We  might 
show  by  a  hundred  examples  that  the  imperial 
idea  in  England  does  not  rest  on  pride  alone, 
on  national  glory  altogether,  though  that  is 


ENGLAND  231 

a  large  element  in  it,  but  on  trade  instincts. 
"  Trade  follows  the  flag "  is  a  well  -  known 
motto;  and  that  means  that  the  lines  of  com 
merce  follow  the  limits  of  empire. 

Take  India  as  an  illustration.  Why  should 
England  care  to  keep  India?  In  the  last 
forty  years  the  total  revenue  from  India,  set 
down  up  to  1880  as  £1,517,000,000,  has  been 
£53,000,000  less  than  the  expenditure.  It 
varies  with  the  years,  and  occasionally  the 
balance  is  favorable,  as  in  1879,  when  the  ex 
penditure  was  £63,400,000  and  the  revenue 
was  £04,400,000.  But  to  offset  this  average 
deficit  the  very  profitable  trade  of  India,  which 
is  mostly  in  British  hands,  swells  the  national 
wealth  ;  and  this  trade  would  not  be  so  largely 
in  British  hands  if  the  flag  were  away. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  value  of  India. 
Grasp  on  India  is  part  of  the  vast  Oriental 
network  of  English  trade  and  commerce,  the 
carrying  trade,  the  supply  of  cotton  and  iron 
goods.  This  largely  depends  upon  English 
prestige  in  the  Orient,  and  to  lose  India  is 
to  lose  the  grip.  On  practically  the  same 
string  with  India  are  Egypt,  Central  Africa, 
and  the  Euphrates  valley.  A  vast  empire  of 
trade  opens  out.  To  sink  the  imperial  policy 
is  to  shut  this  vision.  With  Russia  pressing 


232  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

on  one  side  and  America  competing  on  the 
other,  England  cannot  afford  to  lose  her  mil 
itary  lines,  her  control  of  the  sea,  her  pres 
tige. 

Again,  India  offers  to  the  young  and  the 
adventurous  a  career,  military,  civil,  or  com 
mercial.  This  is  of  great  weight — great  social 
weight.  One  of  the  chief  wants  of  England 
to-day  is  careers  and  professions  for  her  sons. 
The  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  1876 
was  estimated  at  near  thirty-four  millions ;  in 
the  last  few  decades  the  decennial  increase  had 
been  considerably  over  two  millions ;  at  that 
rate  the  population  in  1900  would  be  near 
forty  millions.  How  can  they  live  in  their 
narrow  limits  ?  They  must  emigrate,  go  for 
good,  or  seek  employment  and  means  of  wealth 
in  some  such  vast  field  as  India.  Take  away 
India  now,  and  you  cut  off  the  career  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  young  Englishmen, 
and  the  hope  of  tens  of  thousands  of  house 
holds. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  case  which  it 
would  be  unfair  to  ignore.  Opportunity  is  the 
measure  of  a  nation's  responsibility.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  Mr.  Thomas  Hughes  spoke  for 
a  very  respectable  portion  of  Christian  Eng 
land,  in  1861,  when  he  wrote  Mr.  James  Bus- 


ENGLAND  233 

sell  Lowell,  in  a  prefatory  note  to  Tom  Brown 
at  Oxford,  these  words : 

"The  great  tasks  of  the  world  are  only  laid  on  the 
strongest  shoulders.  We,  who  have  India  to  guide 
and  train,  who  have  for  our  task  the  educating  of  her 
wretched  people  into  free  men,  who  feel  that  the  work 
cannot  be  shifted  from  ourselves,  and  must  be  done  as 
God  would  have  it  done,  at  the  peril  of  England's  own 
life,  can  and  do  feel  for  you." 

It  is  safe,  we  think,  to  say  that  if  the  British 
Empire  is  to  be  dissolved,  disintegration  cannot 
be  permitted  to  begin  at  home.  Ireland  has 
always  been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  England. 
And  the  policy  towards  it  could  not  have  been 
much  worse,  either  to  impress  it  with  a  respect 
for  authority  or  to  win  it  by  conciliation;  it 
has  been  a  strange  mixture  of  untimely  con 
cession  and  untimely  cruelty.  The  problem,  in 
fact,  has  physical  and  race  elements  that  make 
it  almost  insolvable.  A  water-logged  country, 
of  which  nothing  can  surely  be  predicted  but 
the  uncertainty  of  its  harvests,  inhabited  by  a 
people  of  most  peculiar  mental  constitution, 
alien  in  race,  temperament,  and  religion,  hav 
ing  scarcely  one  point  of  sympathy  with  the 
English.  But  geography  settles  some  things 
in  this  world,  and  the  act  of  union  that  bound 
Ireland  to  the  United  Kingdom  in  1800  was 


234  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

as  much  a  necessity  of  the  situation  as  the  act 
of  union  that  obliterated  the  boundary  line 
between  Scotland  and  England  in  1707.  The 
Irish  parliament  was  confessedly  a  failure,  and 
it  is  scarcely  within  the  possibilities  that  the 
experiment  will  be  tried  again.  Irish  inde 
pendence,  so  far  as  English  consent  is  con 
cerned,  and  until  England's  power  is  utterly 
broken,  is  a  dream.  Great  changes  will  doubt 
less  be  made  in  the  tenure  and  transfer  of 
land,  and  these  changes  will  react  upon  Eng 
land  to  the  ultimate  abasement  of  the  landed 
aristocracy ;  but  this  equalization  of  conditions 
would  work  no  consent  to  separation.  The 
undeniable  growth  of  the  democratic  spirit  in 
England  can  no  more  be  relied  on  to  bring  it 
about,  when  we  remember  what  renewed  ex 
ecutive  vigor  and  cohesion  existed  with  the 
Commonwealth  and  the  fiery  foreign  policy  of 
the  first  republic  of  France.  For  three  years 
past  we  have  seen  the  British  Empire  in  peril 
on  all  sides,  with  the  addition  of  depression 
and  incipient  rebellion  at  home,  but  her  hori 
zon  is  not  as  dark  as  it  was  in  1780,  when, 
with  a  failing  cause  in  America,  England  had 
the  whole  of  Europe  against  her. 

In  any  estimate  of  the  prospects  of  Eng 
land  we  must  take  into  account  the  recent 


ENGLAND  235 

marked  changes  in  the  social  condition.  Mr. 
Escott  has  an  instructive  chapter  on  this  in 
his  excellent  book  on  England.  He  notices 
that  the  English  character  is  losing  its  insu 
larity,  is  more  accessible  to  foreign  influences, 
and  is  adopting  foreign,  especially  French, 
modes  of  living.  Country  life  is  losing  its 
charm;  domestic  life  is  changed;  people  live 
in  "flats"  more  and  more,  and  the  idea  of 
home  is  not  what  it  was ;  marriage  is  not 
exactly  what  it  was ;  the  increased  free  and 
independent  relations  of  the  sexes  are  some 
what  demoralizing ;  women  are  a  little  intoxi 
cated  with  their  newly-acquired  freedom;  so 
cial  scandals  are  more  frequent.  It  should  be 
said,  however,  that  perhaps  the  present  perils 
are  due  not  to  the  new  system,  but  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  new ;  when  the  novelty  is  worn  off 
the  peril  may  cease. 

Mr.  Escott  notices  primogeniture  as  one  of 
the  stable  and,  curious  enough,  one  of  the  dem 
ocratic  institutions  of  society.  It  is  owing  to 
primogeniture  that  while  there  is  a  nobility 
in  England  there  is  no  noblesse.  If  titles  and 
lands  went  to  all  the  children  there  would  be 
the  multitudinous  noblesse  of  the  Continent. 
JSTow,  by  primogeniture,  enough  is  retained  for 
a  small  nobility,  but  all  the  younger  sons  must 


236  EELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

go  into  the  world  and  make  a  living.  The 
three  respectable  professions  no  longer  offer 
sufficient  inducement,  and  they  crowd  more 
and  more  into  trade.  Thus  the  middle  class  is 
constantly  recruited  from  the  upper.  Besides, 
the  upper  is  all  the  time  recruited  from  the 
wealthy  middle ;  the  union  of  aristocracy  and 
plutocracy  may  be  said  to  be  complete.  But 
merit  makes  its  way  continually  from  even  the 
lower  ranks  upward,  in  the  professions,  in  the 
army,  the  law,  the  church,  in  letters,  in  trade, 
and,  what  Mr.  Escott  does  not  mention,  in  the 
reformed  civil  service,  newly  opened  to  the 
humblest  lad  in  the  land.  Thus  there  is  con 
stant  movement  up  and  down  in  social  Eng 
land,  approaching,  except  in  the  traditional 
nobility,  the  freedom  of  movement  in  our  own 
country.  This  is  all  wholesome  and  sound. 
Even  the  nobility  itself,  driven  by  ennui,  or  a 
loss  of  former  political  control,  or  by  the  ne 
cessity  of  more  money  to  support  inherited  es 
tates,  goes  into  business,  into  journalism,  writes 
books,  enters  the  professions. 

What  are  the  symptoms  of  decay  in  Eng 
land?  Unless  the  accumulation  of  wealth  is 
a  symptom  of  decay,  I  do  not  see  many.  I 
look  at  the  people  themselves.  It  seems  to 
me  that  never  in  their  history  were  they  more 


ENGLAND  237 

full  of  vigor.  See  what  travellers,  explorers, 
adventurers  they  are.  See  what  sportsmen, 
in  every  part  of  the  globe,  how  much  they 
endure,  and  how  hale  and  jolly  they  are — 
women  as  well  as  men.  The  race,  certainly, 
has  not  decayed.  And  look  at  letters.  It  may 
be  said  that  this  is  not  the  age  of  pure  litera 
ture — and  I'm  sure  I  hope  the  English  pat 
ent  for  producing  machine  novels  will  not 
be  infringed — but  the  English  language  was 
never  before  written  so  vigorously,  so  clearly, 
and  to  such  purpose.  And  this  is  shown  even 
in  the  excessive  refinement  and  elaboration 
of  trifles,  the  minutia  of  reflection,  the  keen 
ness  of  analysis,  the  unrelenting  pursuit  of 
every  social  topic  into  subtleties  untouched 
by  the  older  essayists.  And  there  is  still  more 
vigor,  without  affectation,  in  scientific  inves 
tigation,  in  the  daily  conquests  made  in  the 
realm  of  social  economy,  the  best  methods  of 
living  and  getting  the  most  out  of  life.  Art 
also  keeps  pace  with  luxury,  and  shows  abun 
dant  life  and  promise  for  the  future. 

I  believe,  from  these  and  other  consider 
ations,  that  this  vigorous  people  will  find  a 
way  out  of  its  present  embarrassment,  and  a 
way  out  without  retreating.  For  myself,  I 
like  to  see  the  English  sort  of  civilization 


238  RELATION    OF    LITEEATUKE    TO    LIFE 

spreading  over  the  world  rather  than  the 
Russian  or  the  French.  I  hope  England  will 
hang  on  to  the  East,  and  not  give  it  over  to 
the  havoc  of  squabbling  tribes,  with  a  dozen 
religions  and  five  hundred  dialects,  or  to  the 
military  despotism  of  an  empire  whose  moral 
ity  is  only  matched  by  the  superstition  of  its 
religion. 

The  relations  of  England  and  the  United 
States  are  naturally  of  the  first  interest  to  us. 
Our  love  and  our  hatred  have  always  been 
that  of  true  relatives.  For  three-quarters  of  a 
century  our  amour  propre  was  constantly  kept 
raw  by  the  most  supercilious  patronage.  Dur 
ing  the  past  decade,  when  the  quality  of  Eng 
land's  regard  has  become  more  and  more  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  us,  we  have  been 
the  subject  of  a  more  intelligent  curiosity,  of 
increased  respect,  accompanied  with  a  sin 
cere  desire  to  understand  us.  In  the  diplo 
matic  scale  Washington  still  ranks  below  the 
Sublime  Porte,  but  this  anomaly  is  due  to 
tradition,  and  does  not  represent  England's 
real  estimate  of  the  status  of  the  republic. 
There  is,  and  must  be,  a  good  deal  of  selfish 
ness  mingled  in  our  friendship  —  patriotism 
itself  being  a  form  of  selfishness  —  but  our 
ideas  of  civilization  so  nearly  coincide,  and 


ENGLAND  239 

we  have  so  many  common  aspirations  for 
humanity  that  we  must  draw  nearer  together, 
notwithstanding  old  grudges  and  present  dif 
ferences  in  social  structure.  Our  intercourse 
is  likely  to  be  closer,  our  business  relations 
will  become  more  inseparable.  I  can  conceive 
of  nothing  so  lamentable  for  the  progress  of 
the  world  as  a  quarrel  between  these  two 
English-speaking  people. 

But,  in  one  respect,  we  are  likely  to  diverge. 
I  refer  to  literature;  in  that,  assimilation 
is  neither  probable  nor  desirable.  We  were 
brought  up  on  the  literature  of  England ;  our 
first  efforts  were  imitations  of  it;  we  were 
criticised  —  we  criticised  ourselves  —  on  its 
standards.  We  compared  every  new  aspirant 
in  letters  to  some  English  writer.  We  were 
patted  on  the  back  if  we  resembled  the  Eng 
lish  models ;  we  were  stared  at  or  sneered  at  if 
we  did  not.  When  we  began  to  produce  some 
thing  that  wras  the  product  of  our  own  soil  and 
our  own  social  conditions,  it  was  still  judged 
by  the  old  standards,  or,  if  it  was  too  original 
for  that,  it  was  only  accepted  because  it  was 
curious  or  bizarre,  interesting  for  its  oddity. 
The  criticism  that  we  received  for  our  best 
was  evidently  founded  on  such  indifference  or 
toleration  that  it  was  galling.  At  first  we 


240  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

were  surprised ;  then  we  were  grieved ;  then 
we  were  indignant.  We  have  long  ago  ceased 
to  be  either  surprised,  grieved,  or  indignant 
at  anything  the  English  critics  say  of  us.  We 
have  recovered  our  balance.  We  know  that 
since  Gulliver  there  has  been  no  piece  of 
original  humor  produced  in  England  equal  to 
Knickerbocker's  New  York /  that  not  in  this 
century  has  any  English  writer  equalled  the 
wit  and  satire  of  the  Biglow  Papers.  We 
used  to  be  irritated  at  what  we  called  the 
snobbishness  of  English  critics  of  a  certain 
school ;  we  are  so  no  longer,  for  we  see  that 
its  criticism  is  only  the  result  of  ignorance — 
simply  of  inability  to  understand. 

And  we  the  more  readily  pardon  it,  because 
of  the  inability  we  have  to  understand  Eng 
lish  conditions,  and  the  English  dialect,  which 
has  more  and  more  diverged  from  the  lan 
guage  as  it  was  at  the  time  of  the  separation. 
We  have  so  constantly  read  English  litera 
ture,  and  kept  ourselves  so  well  informed  of 
their  social  life,  as  it  is  exhibited  in  novels 
and  essays,  that  we  are  not  so  much  in  the 
dark  with  regard  to  them  as  they  are  with 
regard  to  us;  still  we  are  more  and  more 
bothered  by  the  insular  dialect.  I  do  not 
propose  to  criticise  it;  it  is  our  misfortune, 


ENGLAND  241 

perhaps  our  fault,  that  we  do  not  understand 
it ;  and  I  only  refer  to  it  to  say  that  we  should 
not  be  too  hard  on  the  Saturday  Review 
critic  when  he  is  complaining  of  the  American 
dialect  in  the  English  that  Mr.  Howells  writes. 
How  can  the  Englishman  be  expected  to  come 
into  sympathy  with  the  fiction  that  has  New 
England  for  its  subject — from  Hawthorne's 
down  to  that  of  our  present  novelists — when 
he  is  ignorant  of  the  whole  background  on 
which  it  is  cast ;  when  all  the  social  conditions 
are  an  enigma  to  him ;  when,  if  he  has,  his 
torically,  some  conception  of  Puritan  society, 
he  cannot  have  a  glimmer  of  comprehension 
of  the  subtle  modifications  and  changes  it  has 
undergone  in  a  century?  When  he  visits 
America  and  sees  it,  it  is  a  puzzle  to  him. 
How,  then,  can  he  be  expected  to  comprehend 
it  when  it  is  depicted  to  the  life  in  books  ? 

No,  we  must  expect  a  continual  divergence 
in  our  literatures.  And  it  is  best  that  there 
should  be.  There  can  be  no  development  of 
a  nation's  literature  worth  anything  that  is 
not  on  its  own  lines,  out  of  its  own  native 
materials.  "We  must  not  expect  that  the  Eng 
lish  will  understand  that  literature  that  ex 
presses  our  national  life,  character,  conditions, 
any  better  than  they  understand  that  of  the 

16 


242  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

French  or  of  the  Germans.  And,  on  our  part, 
the  day  has  come  when  we  receive  their  liter 
ary  efforts  with  the  same  respectful  desire  to 
be  pleased  with  them  that  we  have  to  like 
their  dress  and  their  speech. 

(1882.) 


THE    ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS    DURING 
THE   LATE   INVASION 


THE  ENGLISH  VOLUNTEERS  DURING 
THE   LATE  INVASION 

THE  most  painful  event  since  the  bombard 
ment  of  Alexandria  has  been  what  is  called 
by  an  English  writer  the  "  invasion "  of 
"  American  Literature  in  England."  The 
hostile  forces,  with  an  advanced  guard  of 
what  was  regarded  as  an  "  awkward  squad," 
had  been  gradually  effecting  a  landing  and  a 
lodgment  not  unwelcome  to  the  unsuspicious 
natives.  No  alarm  was  taken  when  they 
threw  out  a  skirmish -line  of  magazines  and 
began  to  deploy  an  occasional  wild  poet,  who 
advanced  in  buckskin  leggings,  revolver  in 
hand,  or  a  stray  sharp-shooting  sketcher  clad 
in  the  picturesque  robes  of  the  sunset.  But 
when  the  main  body  of  American  novelists 
got  fairly  ashore  and  into  position  the  literary 
militia  of  the  island  rose  up  as  one  man,  with 
the  strength  of  a  thousand,  to  repel  the  in 
vaders  and  sweep  them  back  across  the  At 
lantic.  The  spectacle  had  a  dramatic  interest. 


246  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

The  invaders  were  not  numerous,  did  not 
carry  their  native  tomahawks,  they  had  been 
careful  to  wash  off  the  frightful  paint  with 
which  they  usually  go  into  action,  they  did 
not  utter  the  defiant  whoop  of  Pogram,  and 
even  the  militia  regarded  them  as  on  the 
whole  "  amusin'  young  'possums  "  —  and  yet 
all  the  resources  of  modern  and  ancient  war 
fare  were  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  There 
was  a  crack  of  revolvers  from  the  daily  press, 
a  lively  fusillade  of  small -arms  in  the  as 
tonished  weeklies,  a  discharge  of  point-blank 
blunderbusses  from  the  monthlies;  and  some 
of  the  heavy  quarterlies  loaded  up  the  old 
pieces  of  ordnance,  that  had  not  been  charged 
in  forty  years,  with  slugs  and  brickbats  and 
junk-bottles,  and  poured  in  raking  broadsides. 
The  effect  on  the  island  was  something  tremen 
dous  :  it  shook  and  trembled,  and  was  almost 
hidden  in  the  smoke  of  the  conflict.  What 
the  effect  is  upon  the  invaders  it  is  too  soon 
to  determine.  If  any  of  them  survive,  it  will 
be  God's  mercy  to  his  weak  and  innocent 
children. 

It  must  be  said  that  the  American  people — 
such  of  them  as  were  aware  of  this  uprising 
— took  the  punishment  of  their  presumption 
in  a  sweet  and  forgiving  spirit.  If  they  did 


THE    ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS  247 

not  feel  that  they  deserved  it,  they  regarded 
it  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  study  of 
sociology  and  race  characteristics,  in  which 
they  have  taken  a  lively  interest  of  late.  We 
know  how  it  is  ourselves,  they  said ;  we  used 
to  be  thin-skinned  and  self-conscious  and  sen 
sitive.  We  used  to  wince  and  cringe  under 
English  criticism,  and  try  to  strike  back  in  a 
blind  fury.  We  have  learned  that  criticism  is 
good  for  us,  and  we  are  grateful  for  it  from 
any  source.  We  have  learned  that  English 
criticism  is  dictated  by  love  for  us,  by  a  warm 
interest  in  our  intellectual  development,  just 
as  English  anxiety  about  our  revenue  laws  is 
based  upon  a  yearning  that  our  down-trodden 
millions  shall  enjoy  the  benefits  of  free-trade. 
We  did  not  understand  why  a  country  that 
admits  our  beef  and  grain  and  cheese  should 
seem  to  seek  protection  against  a  literary 
product  which  is  brought  into  competition 
with  one  of  the  great  British  staples,  the 
modern  novel.  It  seemed  inconsistent.  But 
we  are  no  more  consistent  ourselves.  We 
cannot  understand  the  action  of  our  own  Con 
gress,  which  protects  the  American  author  by 
a  round  duty  on  foreign  books  and  refuses 
to  protect  him  by  granting  a  foreign  copy 
right  ;  or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  is  willing 


248  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

to  steal  the  brains  of  the  foreign  author  un 
der  the  plea  of  free  knowledge,  but  taxes  free 
knowledge  in  another  form.  We  have  no  de 
fence  to  make  of  the  state  of  international 
copyright,  though  we  appreciate  the  compli 
cation  of  the  matter  in  the  conflicting  inter 
ests  of  English  and  American  publishers. 

Yes ;  we  must  insist  that,  under  the  circum 
stances,  the  American  people  have  borne  this 
outburst  of  English  criticism  in  an  admirable 
spirit.  It  was  as  unexpected  as  it  was  sud 
den.  Now,  for  many  years  our  internation 
al  relations  have  been  uncommonly  smooth, 
oiled  every  few  days  by  complimentary  ban 
quet  speeches,  and  sweetened  by  abundance 
of  magazine  and  newspaper  "taffy."  Some 
thing  too  much  of  "  taffy "  we  have  thought 
was  given  us  at  times,  for,  in  getting  bigger 
in  various  ways,  we  have  grown  more  modest. 
Though  our  English  admirers  may  not  believe 
it,  we  see  our  own  faults  more  clearly  than 
we  once  did  —  thanks,  partly,  to  the  faith 
ful  castigations  of  our  friends — and  we  some 
times  find  it  difficult  to  conceal  our  blushes 
when  we  are  over-praised.  We  fancied  that 
we  were  going  on,  as  an  English  writer  on 
"  Down-Easters  "  used  to  say,  as  "  slick  as  ile," 
when  this  miniature  tempest  suddenly  burst 


THE   ENGLISH   VOLUNTEERS 

out  in  a  revival  of  the  language  and  methods 
used  in  the  redoubtable  old  English  periodicals 
forty  years  ago.  We  were  interested  in  seeing 
how  exactly  this  sort  of  criticism  that  slew 
our  literary  fathers  was  revived  now  for  the 
execution  of  their  degenerate  children.  And 
yet  it  was  not  exactly  the  same.  "VVe  used  to 
call  it  "  slang- whanging."  One  form  of  it 
was  a  blank  surprise  at  the  pretensions  of 
American  authors,  and  a  dismissal  w^ith  the 
formula  of  previous  ignorance  of  their  exist 
ence.  This  is  modified  now  by  a  modest 
expression  of  "discomfiture"  on  reading  of 
American  authors  "  whose  very  names,  much 
less  peculiarities,  we  never  heard  of  before." 
This  is  a  tribunal  from  which  there  is  no 
appeal.  Xot  to  have  been  heard  of  by  an 
Englishman  is  next  door  to  annihilation.  It 
is  at  least  discouraging  to  an  author  who  may 
think  he  has  gained  some  reputation  over 
what  is  now  conceded  to  be  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  earth's  surface,  to  be  cast  into 
total  obscurity  by  the  negative  damnation  of 
English  ignorance.  There  is  to  us  something 
pathetic  in  this  and  in  the  surprise  of  the 
English  critic,  that  there  can  be  any  standard 
of  respectable  achievement  outside  of  a  seven- 
miles  radius  turning  on  Charing  Cross. 


250  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

The  pathetic  aspect  of  the  case  has  not, 
however,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  struck  the 
American  press,  which  has  too  often  treated 
with  unbecoming  levity  this  unaccountable 
exhibition  of  English  sensitiveness.  There 
has  been  little  reply  to  it ;  at  most,  generally 
only  an  amused  report  of  the  war,  and  now 
and  then  a  discriminating  acceptance  of  some 
of  the  criticism  as  just,  with  a  friendly  recog 
nition  of  the  fact  that  on  the  whole  the  critic 
had  done  very  well  considering  the  limitation 
of  his  knowledge  of  the  subject  on  which  he 
wrote.  "What  is  certainly  noticeable  is  an 
entire  absence  of  the  irritation  that  used  to 
be  caused  by  similar  comments  on  America 
thirty  years  ago.  Perhaps  the  Americans  are 
reserving  their  fire  as  their  ancestors  did  at 
Bunker  Hill,  conscious,  maybe,  that  in  the 
end  they  will  be  driven  out  of  their  slight 
literary  intrenchments.  Perhaps  they  were 
disarmed  by  the  fact  that  the  acrid  criticism 
in  the  London  Quarterly  Review  was  ac 
companied  by  a  cordial  appreciation  of  the 
novels  that  seemed  to  the  reviewer  charac 
teristically  American.  The  interest  in  the 
latter's  review  of  our  poor  field  must  be  lan 
guid,  however,  for  nobody  has  taken  the 
trouble  to  remind  its  author  that  Brockden 


THE    ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS  251 

Brown  —  who  is  cited  as  a  typical  American 
writer,  true  to  local  character,  scenery,  and 
color  —  put  no  more  flavor  of  American  life 
and  soil  in  his  books  than  is  to  be  found  in 
Frankenstein. 

It  does  not,  I  should  suppose,  lie  in  the  way 
of  The  Century,  whose  general  audience  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  takes  only  an  amused 
interest  in  this  singular  revival  of  a  traditional 
literary  animosity — an  anachronism  in  these 
tolerant  days  when  the  reading  world  cares 
less  and  less  about  the  origin  of  literature  that 
pleases  it  —  it  does  not  lie  in  the  way  of  The 
Century  to  do  more  than  report  this  phenom 
enal  literary  effervescence.  And  yet  it  cannot 
escape  a  certain  responsibility  as  an  immediate 
though  innocent  occasion  of  this  exhibition  of 
international  courtesy,  because  its  last  Novem 
ber  number  contained  some  papers  that  seem 
to  have  been  irritating.  In  one  of  them  Mr. 
Howells  let  fall  some  chance  remarks  on 
the  tendency  of  modern  fiction,  without  ad 
equately  developing  his  theory,  which  were 
largely  dissented  from  in  this  country,  and 
were  like  the  uncorking  of  six  vials  in  Eng 
land.  The  other  was  an  essay  on  England, 
dictated  by  admiration  for  the  achievements 
of  the  foremost  nation  of  our  time,  which, 


252  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

from  the  awkwardness  of  the  eulogist,  was 
unfortunately  the  uncorking  of  the  seventh 
vial  —  an  uncorking  which,  as  we  happen  to 
know,  so  prostrated  the  writer  that  he  resolved 
never  to  attempt  to  praise  England  again. 
His  panic  was  somewhat  allayed  by  the 
soothing  remark  in  a  kindly  paper  in  Black- 
wood '$  Magazine  for  January,  that  the  writer 
had  discussed  his  theme  "  by  no  means  unfair 
ly  or  disrespectfully."  But  with  a  shudder 
he  recognized  what  a  peril  he  had  escaped. 
Great  Scott ! — the  reference  is  to  a  local  Amer 
ican  deity  who  is  invoked  in  war,  and  not  to 
the  Biblical  commentator — what  would  have 
happened  to  him  if  he  had  spoken  of  England 
"  disrespectfully  " ! 

We  gratefully  acknowledge  also  the  remark 
of  the  Blackwood  writer  in  regard  to  the 
claims  of  America  in  literature.  "These 
claims,"  he  says,  "  we  have  hitherto  been  very 
charitable  to."  How  our  life  depends  upon 
a  continual  exhibition  by  the  critics  of  this 
divine  attribute  of  charity  it  would  perhaps  be 
unwise  in  us  to  confess.  We  can  at  least  take 
courage  that  it  exists — who  does  not  need  it  in 
this  world  of  misunderstandings  ? — since  we 
know  that  charity  is  not  puffed  up,  vaunt- 
eth  not  itself,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all 


THE   ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS  253 

things,  is  not  easily  provoked ;  whether  there 
be  tongues,  they  shall  cease ;  whether  there  be 
knowledge,  it  shall  vanish ;  but  charity  never 
faileth.  And  when  all  our  "dialects"  on 
both  sides  of  the  water  shall  vanish,  and  we 
shall  speak  no  more  Yorkshire  or  Cape  Cod, 
or  London  cockney  or  "  Pike  "  or  "  Cracker  " 
vowel  flatness,  nor  write  them  any  more,  but 
all  use  the  noble  simplicity  of  the  ideal  Eng 
lish,  and  not  indulge  in  such  odd  -  sounding 
phrases  as  this  of  our  critic  that  "  the  comba 
tants  on  both  sides  were  by  way  of  detesting 
each  other,"  though  we  speak  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels  —  we  shall  still  need 
charity. 

It  will  occur  to  the  charitable  that  the 
Americans  are  at  a  disadvantage  in  this  little 
international  "  tiff."  For  while  the  offenders 
have  inconsiderately  written  over  their  own 
names,  the  others  preserve  a  privileged  ano 
nymity.  Any  attempt  to  reply  to  these  voices 
out  of  the  dark  reminds  one  of  the  famous 
duel  between  the  Englishman  and  the  French 
man  which  took  place  in  a  pitch-dark  cham 
ber,  with  the  frightful  result  that  when  the 
tender-hearted  Englishman  discharged  his  re 
volver  up  the  chimney  he  brought  down  his 
man.  One  never  can  tell  in  a  case  of  this 


254  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

kind  but  a  charitable  shot  might  bring  down 
a  valued  friend  or  even  a  peer  of  the  realm. 

In  all  soberness,  however,  and  setting  aside 
the  open  question,  which  country  has  most 
diverged  from  the  English  as  it  was  at  the 
time  of  the  separation  of  the  colonies  from  the 
mother-land,  we  may  be  permitted  a  word  or 
two  in  the  hope  of  a  better  understanding. 
The  offence  in  The  Century  paper  on  "  Eng 
land"  seems  to  have  been  in  phrases  such  as 
these :  "  When  we  began  to  produce  something 
that  was  the  product  of  our  own  soil  and  of 
our  own  social  conditions,  it  was  still  judged 
by  the  old  standards;"  and,  we  are  no  lon 
ger  irritated  by  "  the  snobbishness  of  English 
critics  of  a  certain  school,"  "  for  we  see  that 
its  criticism  is  only  the  result  of  ignorance — 
simply  of  inability  to  understand." 

Upon  this  the  reviewer  affects  to  lose  his 
respiration,  and  with  "  a  gasp  of  incredulity  " 
wants  to  know  what  the  writer  means,  "  and 
what  standards  he  proposes  to  himself  when 
he  has  given  up  the  English  ones?"  The  re 
viewer  makes  a  more  serious  case  than  the 
writer  intended,  or  than  a  fair  construction  of 
the  context  of  his  phrases  warrants.  It  is  the 
criticism  of  "  a  certain  school "  only  that  was 
said  to  be  the  result  of  ignorance.  It  is  not 


THE    ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS  255 

the  English  language  nor  its  body  of  enduring 
literature — the  noblest  monument  of  our  com 
mon  civilization — that  the  writer  objected  to 
as  a  standard  of  our  performances.  The  stand 
ard  objected  to  is  the  narrow  insular  one  (the 
term  "  insular  "  is  used  purely  as  a  geographical 
one)  that  measures  life,  social  conditions,  feel 
ing,  temperament,  and  national  idiosyncrasies 
expressed  in  our  literature  by  certain  fixed 
notions  prevalent  in  England.  Probably  also 
the  expression  of  national  peculiarities  would 
diverge  somewhat  from  the  "  old  standards." 
All  we  thought  of  asking  was  that  allowance 
should  be  made  for  this  expression  and  these 
peculiarities,  as  it  would  be  made  in  case  of 
other  literatures  and  peoples.  It  might  have 
occurred  to  our  critics,  we  used  to  think,  to 
ask  themselves  whether  the  English  literature 
is  not  elastic  enough  to  permit  the  play  of 
forces  in  it  which  are  foreign  to  their  experi 
ence.  Genuine  literature  is  the  expression, 
we  take  it,  of  life  —  and  truth  to  that  is  the 
standard  of  its  success.  Reference  was  in 
tended  to  this,  and  not  to  the  common  canons 
of  literary  art.  But  we  have  given  up  the  ex 
pectation  that  the  English  critic  "  of  a  certain 
school "  will  take  this  view  of  it,  and  this  is  the 
plain  reason  —  not  intended  to  be  offensive — 


256  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

why  much  of  the  English  criticism  has  ceased 
to  be  highly  valued  in  this  country,  and  why 
it  has  ceased  to  annoy.  At  the  same  time,  it 
ought  to  be  added,  English  opinion,  when  it  is 
seen  to  be  based  upon  knowledge,  is  as  high 
ly  respected  as  ever.  And  nobody  in  America, 
so  far  as  we  know,  entertains,  or  ever  enter 
tained,  the  idea  of  setting  aside  as  standards 
the  master-minds  in  British  literature. 

In  regard  to  the  "  inability  to  understand," 
we  can,  perhaps,  make  ourselves  more  clear 
ly  understood,  for  the  Blackwood? s  reviewer 
has  kindly  furnished  us  an  illustration  in  this 
very  paper,  when  he  passes  in  patronizing  re 
view  the  novels  of  Mr.  Howells.  In  discuss 
ing  the  character  of  Lydia  Blood,  in  The 
Lady  of  the  Aroostodk,  he  is  exceedingly  puz 
zled  by  the  fact  that  a  girl  from  rural  New 
England,  brought  up  amid  sorroundings  home 
ly  in  the  extreme,  should  have  been  considered 
a  lady.  He  says : 

"  The  really  'American  thing'  in  it  is,  we  think,  quite 
undiscovered  either  by  the  author  or  his  heroes,  and  that 
is  the  curious  confusion  of  classes  which  attributes  to  a 
girl  brought  up  on  the  humblest  level  all  the  prejudices 
and  necessities  of  the  highest  society.  Granting  that 
there  was  anything  dreadful  in  it,  the  daughter  of  a 
homely  small  farmer  in  England  is  not  guarded  and  ac 
companied  like  a  young  lady  on  her  journeys  from  one 


THE    ENGLISH    VOLUNTEERS  20? 

place  to  another.  Probably  her  mother  at  home  would  be 
disturbed,  like  Lydia's  aunt,  at  the  thought  that  there 
was  no  woman  on  board,  in  case  her  child  should  be  ill  or 
lonely  ;  but,  as  for  any  impropriety,  would  never  think 
twice  on  that  subject.  The  difference  is  that  the  Eng 
lish  girl  would  not  be  a  young  lady.  She  would  find  her 
sweetheart  among  the  sailors,  and  would  have  nothing  to 
say  to  the  gentlemen.  This  difference  is  far  more  curious 
than  the  misadventure,  which  might  have  happened  any 
where,  and  far  more  remarkable  than  the  fact  that  the 
gentlemen  did  behave  to  her  like  gentlemen,  and  did  their 
best  to  set  her  at  ease,  which  we  hope  would  have  happen 
ed  anywhere  else.  But  it  is,  we  think,  exclusively  Amer 
ican,  and  very  curious  and  interesting,  that  this  young 
woman,  with  her  antecedents  so  distinctly  set  before  us, 
should  be  represented  as  a  lady,  not  at  all  out  of  place 
among  her  cultivated  companions,  and  ready  to  become 
an  ornament  of  society  the  moment  she  lands  in  Venice." 


Eeams  of  writing  could  not  more  clearly 
explain  what  is  meant  by  "  inability  to  un 
derstand  "  American  conditions  and  to  judge 
fairly  the  literature  growing  out  of  them ;  and 
reams  of  writing  would  be  wasted  in  the  at 
tempt  to  make  our  curious  critic  comprehend 
the  situation.  There  is  nothing  in  his  expe 
rience  of  "farmers'  daughters"  to  give  him 
the  key  to  it.  We  might  tell  him  that  his  no 
tion  of  a  farmer's  daughters  in  England  does 
not  apply  to  New  England.  We  might  tell 
him  of  a  sort  of  society  of  which  he  has  no 

17 


258  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

conception  and  can  have  none,  of  farmers' 
daughters  and  farmers'  wives  in  New  Eng 
land —  more  numerous,  let  us  confess,  thirty 
or  forty  years  ago  than  now  —  who  lived  in 
homely  conditions,  dressed  with  plainness,  and 
followed  the  fashions  afar  off ;  did  their  own 
household  work,  even  the  menial  parts  of 
it;  cooked  the  meals  for  the  "men  folks" 
and  the  "hired  help,"  made  the  butter  and 
cheese,  and  performed  their  half  of  the  labor 
that  wrung  an  honest  but  not  luxurious  liv 
ing  from  the  reluctant  soil.  And  yet  those 
women  —  the  sweet  and  gracious  ornaments 
of  a  self-respecting  society  —  were  full  of 
spirit,  of  modest  pride  in  their  position,  were 
familiar  with  much  good  literature,  could  con 
verse  with  piquancy  and  understanding  on 
subjects  of  general  interest,  were  trained  in  the 
subtleties  of  a  solid  theology,  and  bore  them 
selves  in  any  company  with  that  traditional 
breeding  which  we  associate  with  the  name  of 
lady.  Such  strong  native  sense  had  they,  such 
innate  refinement  and  courtesy — the  product, 
it  used  to  be  said,  of  plain  living  and  high 
thinking  —  that,  ignorant  as  they  might  be  of 
civic  ways,  they  would,  upon  being  introduced 
to  them,  need  only  a  brief  space  of  time  to 
"  orient "  themselves  to  the  new  circumstances. 


THE   ENGLISH   VOLUNTEERS  259 

Much  more  of  this  sort  might  be  said  without 
exaggeration.  To  us  there  is  nothing  incon 
gruous  in  the  supposition  that  Lydia  Blood 
was  "  ready  to  become  an  ornament  to  society 
the  moment  she  lands  in  Venice." 

But  we  lack  the  missionary  spirit  necessary 
to  the  exertion  to  make  our  interested  critic 
comprehend  such  a  social  condition,  and  we 
prefer  to  leave  ourselves  to  his  charity,  in  the 
hope  of  the  continuance  of  which  we  rest  in 
serenity. 

(1883.) 


THE  NOVEL  AND   THE  COMMON 
SCHOOL 


THE  NOVEL  AND  THE  COMMON 
SCHOOL 

THERE  has  been  a  great  improvement  in  the 
physical  condition  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  within  two  generations.  This  is  more 
noticeable  in  the  West  than  in  the  East,  but 
it  is  marked  everywhere ;  and  the  foreign 
traveller  who  once  detected  a  race  deteriora 
tion,  which  he  attributed  to  a  dry  and  stim 
ulating  atmosphere  and  to  a  feverish  anxiety, 
which  was  evident  in  all  classes,  for  a  rapid 
change  of  condition,  finds  very  little  now  to 
sustain  his  theory.  Although  the  restless 
energy  continues,  the  mixed  race  in  America 
has  certainly  changed  physically  for  the  bet 
ter.  Speaking  generally,  the  contours  of  face 
and  form  are  more  rounded.  The  change  is 
most  marked  in  regions  once  noted  for  lean 
ness,  angularity,  and  sallowness  of  complexion, 
but  throughout  the  country  the  types  of  phys 
ical  manhood  are  more  numerous;  and  if 
women  of  rare  and  exceptional  beauty  are  not 


264  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

more  numerous,  no  doubt  the  average  of  come 
liness  and  beauty  has  been  raised.  Thus  far, 
the  increase  of  beauty  due  to  better  develop 
ment  has  not  been  at  the  expense  of  delicacy 
of  complexion  and  of  line,  as  it  has  been  in 
some  European  countries. 

Physical  well-being  is  almost  entirely  a 
matter  of  nutrition.  Something  is  due  in  our 
case  to  the  accumulation  of  money,  to  the 
decrease  in  an  increasing  number  of  our  pop 
ulation  of  the  daily  anxiety  about  food  and 
clothes,  to  more  leisure;  but  abundant  and 
better -prepared  food  is  the  direct  agency  in 
our  physical  change.  Good  food  is  not  only 
more  abundant  and  more  widely  distributed 
than  it  was  two  generations  ago,  but  it  is  to 
be  had  in  immeasurably  greater  variety.  No 
other  people  existing,  or  that  ever  did  exist, 
could  command  such  a  variety  of  edible  prod 
ucts  for  daily  consumption  as  the  mass  of 
the  American  people  habitually  use  to-day. 
In  consequence  they  have  the  opportunity  of 
being  better  nourished  than  any  other  people 
ever  were.  If  they  are  not  better  nourished, 
it  is  because  their  food  is  badly  prepared. 
Whenever  we  find,  either  in  New  England 
or  in  the  South,  a  community  ill-favored,  dys 
peptic,  lean,  and  faded  in  complexion,  we  may 


THE    NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL        265 

be  perfectly  sure  that  its  cooking  is  bad,  and 
that  it  is  too  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  health  to 
procure  that  variety  of  food  which  is  so  easily 
obtainable.  People  who  still  diet  on  sodden 
pie  and  the  products  of  the  frying-pan  of  the 
pioneers,  and  then,  in  order  to  promote  diges 
tion,  attempt  to  imitate  the  patient  cow  by 
masticating  some  elastic  and  fragrant  gum, 
are  doing  very  little  to  bring  in  that  universal 
physical  health  or  beauty  which  is  the  natural 
heritage  of  our  opportunity. 

Now,  what  is  the  relation  of  our  intellectual 
development  to  this  physical  improvement? 
It  will  be  said  that  the  general  intelligence  is 
raised,  that  the  habit  of  reading  is  much  more 
wide-spread,  and  that  the  increase  of  books, 
periodicals,  and  newspapers  shows  a  greater 
mental  activity  than  existed  formerly.  It 
will  also  be  said  that  the  opportunity  for  edu 
cation  was  never  before  so  nearly  universal. 
If  it  is  not  yet  true  everywhere  that  all 
children  must  go  to  school,  it  is  true  that  all 
may  go  to  school  free  of  cost.  Without  doubt, 
also,  great  advance  has  been  made  in  American 
scholarship,  in  specialized  learning  and  inves 
tigation;  that  is  to  say,  the  proportion  of 
scholars  of  the  first  rank  in  literature  and  in 
science  is  much  larger  to  the  population  than 
a  generation  ago. 


266  RELATION    OF    LITEJBATUEE    TO    LIFE 

But  what  is  the  relation  of  our  general  in 
tellectual  life  to  popular  education?  Or,  in 
other  words,  what  effect  is  popular  education 
having  upon  the  general  intellectual  habit  and 
taste?  There  are  two  ways  of  testing  this. 
One  is  by  observing  whether  the  mass  of 
minds  is  better  trained  and  disciplined  than 
formerly,  less  liable  to  delusions,  better  able 
to  detect  fallacies,  more  logical,  and  less  likely 
to  be  led  away  by  novelties  in  speculation,  or 
by  theories  that  are  unsupported  by  historic 
evidence  or  that  are  contradicted  by  a  knowl 
edge  of  human  nature.  If  we  were  tempted 
to  pursue  this  test,  we  should  be  forced  to 
note  the  seeming  anomaly  of  a  scientific  age 
peculiarly  credulous ;  the  ease  with  which  any 
charlatan  finds  followers;  the  common  readi 
ness  to  fall  in  with  any  theory  of  progress 
which  appeals  to  the  sympathies,  and  to  accept 
the  wildest  notions  of  social  reorganization. 
"We  should  be  obliged  to  note  also,  among 
scientific  men  themselves,  a  disposition  to 
come  to  conclusions  on  inadequate  evidence 
— a  disposition  usually  due  to  one-sided  edu 
cation  which  lacks  metaphysical  training  and 
the  philosophic  habit.  Multitudes  of  fairly 
intelligent  people  are  afloat  without  any  base 
line  of  thought  to  which  they  can  refer  new 


THE   NOVEL    AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       267 

suggestions;  just  as  many  politicians  are 
floundering  about  for  want  of  an  apprehen 
sion  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
and  of  the  historic  development  of  society. 
An  honest  acceptance  of  the  law  of  gravita 
tion  would  banish  many  popular  delusions ; 
a  comprehension  that  something  cannot  be 
made  out  of  nothing  would  dispose  of  others; 
and  the  application  of  the  ordinary  principles 
of  evidence,  such  as  men  require  to  establish 
a  title  to  property,  would  end  most  of  the  re 
maining.  How  far  is  our  popular  education, 
which  we  have  now  enjoyed  for  two  full  gen 
erations,  responsible  for  this  state  of  mind  ? 
If  it  has  not  encouraged  it,  has  it  done  much 
to  correct  it  ? 

The  other  test  of  popular  education  is  in  the 
kind  of  reading  sought  and  enjoyed  by  the  ma 
jority  of  the  American  people.  As  the  greater 
part  of  this  reading  is  admitted  to  be  fiction, 
we  have  before  us  the  relation  of  the  novel  to 
the  common  school.  As  the  common  school 
is  our  universal  method  of  education,  and 
the  novels  most  in  demand  are  those  least 
worthy  to  be  read,  we  may  consider  this  sub 
ject  in  two  aspects :  the  encouragement,  by 
neglect  or  by  teaching,  of  the  taste  that  de 
mands  this  kind  of  fiction,  and  the  tendency 


268  RELATION   OF   LITEKATUEE   TO   LIFE 

of  the  novel  to  become  what  this  taste  de 
mands. 

Before  considering  the  common  school,  how 
ever,  we  have  to  notice  a  phenomenon  in  let 
ters —  namely,  the  evolution  of  the  modern 
newspaper  as  a  vehicle  for  general  reading- 
matter.  Not  content  with  giving  the  news, 
or  even  with  creating  news  and  increasing  its 
sensational  character,  it  grasps  at  the  wider 
field  of  supplying  reading  material  for  the 
million,  usurping  the  place  of  books  and  to  a 
large  extent  of  periodicals.  The  effect  of  this 
new  departure  in  journalism  is  beginning  to 
attract  attention.  An  increasing  number  of 
people  read  nothing  except  the  newspapers. 
Consequently,  they  get  little  except  scraps 
and  bits  ;  no  subject  is  considered  thoroughly 
or  exhaustively ;  and  they  are  furnished  with 
not  much  more  than  the  small  change  for 
superficial  conversation.  The  habit  of  exces 
sive  newspaper  reading,  in  which  a  great 
variety  of  topics  is  inadequately  treated,  has 
a  curious  effect  on  the  mind.  It  becomes 
demoralized,  gradually  loses  the  power  of 
concentration  or  of  continuous  thought,  and 
even  loses  the  inclination  to  read  the  long 
articles  which  the  newspaper  prints.  The 
eye  catches  a  thousand  things,  but  is  detained 


THE   NOVEL  AND  THE   COMMON   SCHOOL       269 

by  no  one.  Variety,  which  in  limitations  is 
wholesome  in  literary  as  well  as  in  physical 
diet,  creates  dyspepsia  when  it  is  excessive, 
and  when  the  literary  viands  are  badly  cooked 
and  badly  served  the  evil  is  increased.  The 
mind  loses  the  power  of  discrimination,  the 
taste  is  lowered,  and  the  appetite  becomes 
diseased.  The  effect  of  this  scrappy,  desultory 
reading  is  bad  enough  when  the  hashed  com 
pound  selected  is  tolerably  good.  It  becomes 
a  very  serious  matter  when  the  reading  itself 
is  vapid,  frivolous,  or  bad.  The  responsibility 
of  selecting  the  mental  food  for  millions  of 
people  is  serious.  When,  in  the  last  century, 
in  England,  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of 
Useful  Information,  which  accomplished  so 
much  good,  was  organized,  this  responsibility 
was  felt,  and  competent  hands  prepared  the 
popular  books  and  pamphlets  that  were  cheap 
in  price  and  widely  diffused.  ISTow,  it  hap 
pens  that  a  hundred  thousand  people,  perhaps 
a  million  in  some  cases,  surrender  the  right 
of  the  all-important  selection  of  the  food  for 
their  minds  to  some  unknown  and  irresponsi 
ble  person  whose  business  it  is  to  choose  the 
miscellaneous  reading-matter  for  a  particular 
newspaper.  His  or  her  taste  may  be  good, 
or  it  may  be  immature  and  vicious ;  it  may  be 


270  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE  TO   LIFE 

used  simply  to  create  a  sensation ;  and  yet 
the  million  of  readers  get  nothing  except  what 
this  one  person  chooses  they  shall  read.  It  is 
an  astonishing  abdication  of  individual  pref 
erence.  Day  after  day,  Sunday  after  Sunday, 
they  read  only  what  this  unknown  person 
selects  for  them.  Instead  of  going  to  the 
library  and  cultivating  their  own  tastes,  and 
pursuing  some  subject  that  will  increase  their 
mental  vigor  and  add  to  their  permanent  stock 
of  thought,  they  fritter  away  their  time  upon 
a  hash  of  literature  chopped  up  for  them  by  a 
person  possibly  very  unfit  even  to  make  good 
hash.  The  mere  statement  of  this  surrender 
of  one's  judgment  of  what  shall  be  his  intel 
lectual  life  is  alarming. 

But  the  modern  newspaper  is  no  doubt  a 
natural  evolution  in  our  social  life.  As  every 
thing  has  a  cause,  it  would  be  worth  while  to 
inquire  whether  the  encyclopedic  newspaper 
is  in  response  to  a  demand,  to  a  taste  created 
by  our  common  schools.  Or,  to  put  the  ques 
tion  in  another  form,  does  the  system  of  edu 
cation  in  our  common  schools  give  the  pupils 
a  taste  for  good  literature  or  much  power  of 
discrimination  ?  Do  they  come  out  of  school 
with  the  habit  of  continuous  reading,  of  read 
ing  books,  or  only  of  picking  up  scraps  in  the 


THE   NOVEL   AND   THE   COMMON    SCHOOL       271 

newspapers,  as  they  might  snatch  a  hasty 
meal  at  a  lunch-counter  ?  What,  in  short,  do 
the  schools  contribute  to  the  creation  of  a 
taste  for  good  literature  ? 

Great  anxiety  is  felt  in  many  quarters  about 
the  modern  novel.  It  is  feared  that  it  will 
not  be  realistic  enough,  that  it  will  be  too 
realistic,  that  it  will  be  insincere  as  to  the 
common  aspects  of  life,  that  it  will  not  suf 
ficiently  idealize  life  to  keep  itself  within  the 
limits  of  true  art.  But  while  the  critics  are 
busy  saying  what  the  novel  should  be,  and 
attacking  or  defending  the  fiction  of  the  pre 
vious  age,  the  novel  obeys  pretty  well  the 
laws  of  its  era,  and  in  many  ways,  especially 
in  the  variety  of  its  development,  represents 
the  time.  Regarded  simply  as  a  work  of  art, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  novel  should  be  an  ex 
pression  of  the  genius  of  its  writer  conscien 
tiously  applied  to  a  study  of  the  facts  of  life 
and  of  human  nature,  with  little  reference  to 
the  audience.  Perhaps  the  great  works  of  art 
that  have  endured  have  been  so  composed. 
We  may  say,  for  example,  that  Don  Quixote 
had  to  create  its  sympathetic  audience.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  works  of  art  worthy  the 
name  are  sometimes  produced  to  suit  a  de 
mand  and  to  please  a  taste  already  created. 


272  RELATION   OF  LITERATURE  TO  LIFE 

A  great  deal  of  what  passes  for  literature  in 
these  days  is  in  this  category  of  supply  to 
suit  the  demand,  and  perhaps  it  can  be  said 
of  this  generation  more  fitly  than  of  any 
other  that  the  novel  seeks  to  hit  the  popular 
taste;  having  become  a  means  of  livelihood, 
it  must  sell  in  order  to  be  profitable  to  the 
producer,  and  in  order  to  sell  it  must  be  what 
the  reading  public  want.  The  demand  and  sale 
are  widely  taken  as  the  criterion  of  excellence, 
or  they  are  at  least  sufficient  encouragement 
of  further  work  on  the  line  of  the  success. 
This  criterion  is  accepted  by  the  publisher, 
whose  business  it  is  to  supply  a  demand.  The 
conscientious  publisher  asks  two  questions :  Is 
the  book  good  ?  and  Will  it  sell  ?  The  pub 
lisher  without  a  conscience  asks  only  one 
question :  Will  the  book  sell  ?  The  reflex  in 
fluence  of  this  upon  authors  is  immediately 
felt. 

The  novel,  mediocre,  banal,  merely  sensa 
tional,  and  worthless  for  any  purpose  of  in 
tellectual  stimulus  or  elevation  of  the  ideal, 
is  thus  encouraged  in  this  age  as  it  never  was 
before.  The  making  of  novels  has  become  a 
process  of  manufacture.  Usually,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  silk- weavers  of  Lyons,  they  are 
made  for  the  central  establishment  on  individ- 


THE   NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       273 

ual  looms  at  home;  but  if  demand  for  the 
sort  of  goods  furnished  at  present  continues, 
there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
produced,  even  more  cheaply  than  they  are 
now,  in  great  factories,  where  there  can  be 
division  of  labor  and  economy  of  talent.  The 
shoal  of  English  novels  conscientiously  re 
viewed  every  seventh  day  in  the  London 
weeklies  would  preserve  their  present  charac 
ter  and  gain  in  firmness  of  texture  if  they 
wrere  made  by  machinery.  One  has  only  to 
mark  what  sort  of  novels  reach  the  largest 
sale  and  are  most  called  for  in  the  circulating 
libraries,  to  gauge  pretty  accurately  the  public 
taste,  and  to  measure  the  influence  of  this 
taste  upon  modern  production.  With  the 
exception  of  the  novel  now  and  then  which 
touches  some  religious  problem  or  some  social 
istic  speculation  or  uneasiness,  or  is  a  special 
freak  of  sensationalism,  the  novels  which  suit 
the  greatest  number  of  readers  are  those  which 
move  in  a  plane  of  absolute  mediocrity,  and 
have  the  slightest  claim  to  be  considered 
works  of  art.  They  represent  the  chromo 
stage  of  development. 

They  must  be  cheap.  The  almost  universal 
habit  of  reading  is  a  mark  of  this  age — no 
where  else  so  conspicuous  as  in  America  ;  and 

18 


274  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

considering  the  training  of  this  comparatively 
new  reading  public,  it  is  natural  that  it  should 
insist  upon  cheapness  of  material,  and  that  it 
should  require  quality  less  than  quantity.  It 
is  a  note  of  our  general  intellectual  develop 
ment  that  cheapness  in  literature  is  almost  as 
much  insisted  on  by  the  rich  as  by  the  poor. 
The  taste  for  a  good  book  has  not  kept  pace 
with  the  taste  for  a  good  dinner,  and  multi 
tudes  who  have  commendable  judgment  about 
the  table  would  think  it  a  piece  of  extrava 
gance  to  pay  as  much  for  a  book  as  for  a  din 
ner,  and  would  be  ashamed  to  smoke  a  cigar 
that  cost  less  than  a  novel.  Indeed,  we  seem 
to  be  as  yet  far  away  from  the  appreciation 
of  the  truth  that  what  we  put  into  the  mind 
is  as  important  to  our  well-being  as  what  we 
put  into  the  stomach. 

No  doubt  there  are  more  people  capable  of 
appreciating  a  good  book,  and  there  are  more 
good  books  read,  in  this  age,  than  in  any 
previous,  though  the  ratio  of  good  judges  to 
the  number  who  read  is  less ;  but  we  are  con 
sidering  the  vast  mass  of  the  reading  public 
and  its  tastes.  I  say  its  tastes,  and  probably 
this  is  not  unfair,  although  this  travelling, 
restless,  reading  public  meekly  takes,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  reading  selected  in  the  news- 


THE    NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       275 

papers,  what  is  most  persistently  thrust  upon 
its  attention  by  the  great  news  agencies, 
which  find  it  most  profitable  to  deal  in  that 
which  is  cheap  and  ephemeral.  The  houses 
which  publish  books  of  merit  are  at  a  disad 
vantage  with  the  distributing  agencies. 

Criticism  which  condemns  the  common- 
school  system  as  a  nurse  of  superficiality,  me 
diocrity,  and  conceit  does  not  need  serious  at 
tention,  any  more  than  does  the  criticism  that 
the  universal  opportunity  of  individual  wel 
fare  offered  by  a  republic  fails  to  make  a  per 
fect  government.  But  this  is  not  saying  that 
the  common  school  does  all  that  it  can  do,  and 
that  its  results  answer  to  the  theories  about 
it.  It  must  be  partly  due  to  the  want  of 
proper  training  in  the  public  schools  that  there 
are  so  few  readers  of  discrimination,  and  that 
the  general  taste,  judged  by  the  sort  of  books 
now  read,  is  so  mediocre.  Most  of  the  public 
schools  teach  reading,  or  have  taught  it,  so 
poorly  that  the  scholars  who  come  from  them 
cannot  read  easily;  hence  they  must  have 
spice,  and  blood,  and  vice  to  stimulate  them, 
just  as  a  man  who  has  lost  tast6  peppers- his 
food.  We  need  not  agree  with  those  who  say 
that  there  is  no  merit  whatever  in  the  mere 
ability  to  read,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we 


276  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUKE   TO   LIFE 

join  those  who  say  that  the  art  of  reading  will 
pretty  surely  encourage  a  taste  for  the  nobler 
kind  of  reading,  and  that  the  habit  of  reading 
trash  will  by-and-by  lead  the  reader  to  better 
things.  As  a  matter  of  experience,  the  reader 
of  the  namby-pamby  does  not  acquire  an  ap 
petite  for  anything  more  virile,  and  the  reader 
of  the  sensational  requires  constantly  more 
highly  flavored  viands.  Nor  is  it  reasonable 
to  expect  good  taste  to  be  recovered  by  an  in 
dulgence  in  bad  taste. 

"What,  then,  does  the  common  school  usually 
do  for  literary  taste?  Generally  there  is  no 
thought  about  it.  It  is  not  in  the  minds  of 
the  majority  of  teachers,  even  if  they  possess 
it  themselves.  The  business  is  to  teach  the 
pupils  to  read ;  how  they  shall  use  the  art  of 
reading  is  little  considered.  If  we  examine 
the  reading-books  from  the  lowest  grade  to  the 
highest,  we  shall  find  that  their  object  is  to 
teach  words,  not  literature.  The  lower-grade 
books  are  commonly  inane  (I  will  not  say  child 
ish,  for  that  is  a  libel  on  the  open  minds  of 
children)  beyond  description.  There  is  an  im 
pression  that  advanced  readers  have  improved 
much  in  quality  within  a  few  years,  and  doubt 
less  some  of  them  do  contain  specimens  of 
better  literature  than  their  predecessors.  But 


THE    NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       277 

they  are  on  the  old  plan,  which  must  be  radi 
cally  modified  or  entirely  cast  aside,  and  doubt 
less  will  be  when  the  new  method  is  compre 
hended,  and  teachers  are  well  enough  furnished 
to  cut  loose  from  the  machine.  We  may  say 
that  to  learn  how  to  read,  and  not  what  to 
read,  is  confessedly  the  object  of  these  books ; 
but  even  this  object  is  not  attained.  There  is 
an  endeavor  to  teach  how  to  call  the  words 
of  a  reading-book,  but  not  to  teach  how  to 
read ;  for  reading  involves,  certainly  for  the 
older  scholars,  the  combination  of  known 
words  to  form  new  ideas.  This  is  lacking. 
The  taste  for  good  literature  is  not  developed ; 
the  habit  of  continuous  pursuit  of  a  subject, 
with  comprehension  of  its  relations,  is  not  ac 
quired  ;  and  no  conception  is  gained  of  the  en 
tirety  of  literature  or  its  importance  to  human 
life.  Consequently,  there  is  no  power  of  judg 
ment  or  faculty  of  discrimination. 

Now,  this  radical  defect  can  be  easily  reme 
died  if  the  school  authorities  only  clearly  ap 
prehend  one  truth,  and  that  is  that  the  minds 
of  children  of  tender  age  can  be  as  readily 
interested  and  permanently  interested  in  good 
literature  as  in  the  dreary  feebleness  of  the 
juvenile  reader.  The  mind  of  the  ordinary 
child  should  not  be  judged  by  the  mind  that 


278  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

produces  stuff  of  this  sort :  "  Little  Jimmy  had 
a  little  white  pig."  "  Did  the  little  pig  know 
Jimmy  ?"  "  Yes,  the  little  pig  knew  Jimmy, 
and  would  come  when  he  called."  "  How  did 
little  Jimmy  know  his  pig  from  the  other  little 
pigs  ?"  "  By  the  twist  in  his  tail."  ("  Chil 
dren,"  asks  the  teacher,  "  what  is  the  meaning 
of  '  twist '  ?")  "  Jimmy  liked  to  stride  the  little 
pig's  back."  "  Would  the  little  pig  let  him?" 
"  Yes,  when  he  was  absorbed  eating  his 
dinner."  ("  Children,  what  is  the  meaning  of 
1  absorbed '  ?")  And  so  on. 

This  intellectual  exercise  is,  perhaps,  read 
to  children  who  have  not  got  far  enough  in 
"  word  -building"  to  read  themselves  about 
little  Jimmy  and  his  absorbed  pig.  It  may  be 
continued,  together  with  word  -  learning,  until 
the  children  are  able  to  say  (is  it  reading  ?)  the 
entire  volume  of  this  precious  stuff.  To  what 
end?  The  children  are  only  languidly  inter 
ested  ;  their  minds  are  not  awakened ;  the 
imagination  is  not  appealed  to ;  they  have 
learned  nothing,  except  probably  some  new 
words,  which  are  learned  as  signs.  Often  chil 
dren  have  only  one  book  even  of  this  sort,  at 
which  they  are  kept  until  they  learn  it  through 
by  heart,  and  they  have  been  heard  to  "read" 
it  with  the  book  bottom  side  up  or  shut !  All 


THE    NOVEL   AND    THE   COMMON   SCHOOL       279 

these  books  cultivate  inattention  and  intel 
lectual  vacancy.  They  are — the  best  of  them 
—only  reading  exercises ;  and  reading  is  not 
perceived  to  have  any  sort  of  value.  The 
child  is  not  taught  to  think,  and  not  a  step  is 
taken  in  informing  him  of  his  relation;  to  the 
world  about  him.  His  education  is  not  begun. 
Now  it  happens  that  children  go  on  with 
this  sort  of  reading  and  the  ordinary  text 
books  through  the  grades  of  the  district 
school  into  the  high  school,  and  come  to  the 
ages  of  seventeen  and  eighteen  without  the 
least  conception  of  literature,  or  of  art,  or  of 
the  continuity  of  the  relations  of  history ;  are 
ignorant  of  the  great  names  which  illuminate 
the  ages ;  have  never  heard  of  Socrates,  or  of 
Phidias,  or  of  Titian ;  do  not  know  whether 
Franklin  was  an  Englishman  or  an  American ; 
would  be  puzzled  to  say  whether  it  was  Ben 
Franklin  or  Ben  Jonson  who  invented  light 
ning — think  it  was  Ben  Somebody ;  cannot  tell 
whether  they  lived  before  or  after  Christ,  and 
indeed  never  have  thought  that  anything 
happened  before  the  time  of  Christ ;  do  not 
know  who  was  on  the  throne  of  Spain  when 
Columbus  discovered  America  —  and  so  on. 
These  are  not  imagined  instances.  The  chil 
dren  referred  to  are  in  good  circumstances 


280  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

and  have  had  fairly  intelligent  associations, 
but  their  education  has  been  intrusted  to  the 
schools.  They  know  nothing  except  their 
text-books,  and  they  know  these  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  examination.  Such  pupils  come 
to  the  age  of  eighteen  with  not  only  no  taste 
for  the  best  reading,  for  the  reading  of  books, 
but  without  the  ability  to  be  interested  even 
in  fiction  of  the  first  class,  because  it  is  full  of 
allusions  that  convey  nothing  to  their  minds. 
The  stories  they  read,  if  they  read  at  all — the 
novels,  so  called,  that  they  have  been  brought 
up  on — are  the  diluted  and  feeble  fictions  that 
flood  the  country,  and  that  scarcely  rise  above 
the  intellectual  level  of  Jimmy  and  the  ab 
sorbed  pig. 

It  has  been  demonstrated  by  experiment 
that  it  is  as  easy  to  begin  with  good  litera 
ture  as  with  the  sort  of  reading  described.  It 
makes  little  difference  where  the  beginning  is 
made.  Any  good  book,  any  real  book,  is  an 
open  door  into  the  wide  field  of  literature ; 
that  is  to  say,  of  history — that  is  to  say,  of  in 
terest  in  the  entire  human  race.  Read  to 
children  of  tender  years,  the  same  day,  the 
story  of  Jimmy  and  a  Greek  myth,  or  an 
episode  from  the  Odyssey r,  or  any  genuine  bit 
of  human  nature  and  life ;  and  ask  the  children 


THE   NOVEL    AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       281 

next  day  which  they  wish  to  hear  again.  Al 
most  all  of  them  will  call  for  the  repetition  of 
the  real  thing,  the  verity  of  which  they  recog 
nize,  and  which  has  appealed  to  their  imagi 
nations.  But  this  is  not  all.  If  the  subject  is 
a  Greek  myth,  they  speedily  come  to  com 
prehend  its  meaning,  and  by  the  aid  of  the 
teacher  to  trace  its  development  elsewhere,  to 
understand  its  historic  significance,  to  have  the 
mind  filled  with  images  of  beauty  and  wonder. 
Is  it  the  Homeric  story  of  Nausicaa  ?  What  a 
picture !  How  speedily  Greek  history  opens  to 
the  mind !  How  readily  the  children  acquire 
knowledge  of  the  great  historic  names,  and  see 
how  their  deeds  and  their  thoughts  are  related 
to  our  deeds  and  our  thoughts !  It  is  as  easy 
to  know  about  Socrates  as  about  Franklin  and 
General  Grant.  Having  the  mind  open  to 
other  times  and  to  the  significance  of  great 
men  in  history,  how  much  more  clearly  they 
comprehend  Franklin  and  Grant  and  Lincoln! 
ISTor  is  this  all.  The  young  mind  is  open  to 
noble  thoughts,  to  high  conceptions;  it  fol 
lows  by  association  easily  along  the  historic 
and  literary  line ;  and  not  only  do  great 
names  and  fine  pieces  of  literature  become  fa 
miliar,  but  the  meaning  of  the  continual  life  in 
the  world  begins  to  be  apprehended.  This  is 


282  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

not  at  all  a  fancy  sketch.  The  writer  has 
seen  the  whole  assembly  of  pupils  in  a  school 
of  six  hundred,  of  all  the  eight  grades,  intel 
ligently  interested  in  a  talk  which  contained 
classical  and  literary  allusions  that  would  have 
been  incomprehensible  to  an  ordinary  school 
brought  up  on  the  ordinary  readers  and  text 
books. 

But  the  reading  need  not  be  confined  to  the 
classics  nor  to  the  masterpieces  of  literature. 
Natural  history — generally  the  most  fascinat 
ing  of  subjec|£  —  can  be  taught;  interest  in 
flowers  and  trees  and  birds  and  the  habits  of 
animals  can  be  awakened  by  reading  the  es 
says  of  literary  men  on  these  topics  as  they 
never  can  be  by  the  dry  text -books.  The 
point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  real  literature  for 
the  young,  literature  which  is  almost  absolute 
ly  neglected  in  the  public  schools,  except  in  a 
scrappy  way  as  a  reading  exercise,  is  the  best 
open-door  to  the  development  of  the  mind  and 
to  knowledge  of  all  sorts.  The  unfolding  of  a 
Greek  myth  leads  directly  to  art,  to  love  of 
beauty,  to  knowledge  of  history,  to  an  under 
standing  of  ourselves.  But  whatever  the  be 
ginning  is,  whether  a  classic  myth,  a  Homeric 
epic,  a  play  of  Sophocles,  the  story  of  the  life 
and  death  of  Socrates,  a  medieval  legend,  or 


THE    NOVEL    AND    THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       283 

any  genuine  piece  of  literature  from  the  time 
of  Virgil  down  to  our  own,  it  may  not  so 
much  matter  (except  that  it  is  better  to  begin 
with  the  ancients  in  order  to  gain  a  proper 
perspective)  —  whatever  the  beginning  is,  it 
should  be  the  best  literature.  The  best  is  not 
too  good  for  the  youngest  child.  Simplicity, 
which  commonly  characterizes  greatness,  is 
of  course  essential.  But  never  was  a  greater 
mistake  made  than  in  thinking  that  a  youth 
ful  mind  needs  watering  with  the  slops  ordi 
narily  fed  to  it.  Even  children  in  the  kinder 
garten  are  eager  for  Whittier's  Barefoot  Boy 
and  Longfellow's  Hiawatha.  It  requires,  I 
repeat,  little  more  pains  to  create  a  good  taste 
in  reading  than  a  bad  taste. 

It  would  seem  that  in  the  complete  organi 
zation  of  the  public  schools  all  education  of 
the  pupil  is  turned  over  to  them  as  it  was  not 
formerly,  and  it  is  possible  that  in  the  stress 
of  text -book  education  there  is  no  time  for 
reading  at  home.  The  competent  teachers 
contend  not  merely  with  the  difficulty  of  the 
lack  of  books  and  the  deficiencies  of  those  in 
use,  but  with  the  more  serious  difficulty  of  the 
erroneous  ideas  of  the  function  of  text-books. 
They  will  cease  to  be  a  commercial  commodity 
of  so  much  value  as  now  when  teachers  teach. 


284  RELATION   OF   LITEEATUEE   TO   LIFE 

If  it  is  true  that  there  is  no  time  for  reading 
at  home,  we  can  account  for  the  deplorable  lack 
of  taste  in  the  great  mass  of  the  reading  public 
educated  at  the  common  schools ;  and  we  can 
see  exactly  what  the  remedy  should  be — name 
ly,  the  teaching  of  the  literature  at  the  begin 
ning  of  school  life,  and  following  it  up  broad 
ly  and  intelligently  during  the  whole  school 
period.  It  will  not  crowd  out  anything  else, 
because  it  underlies  everything.  After  many 
years  of  perversion  and  neglect,  to  take  up 
the  study  of  literature  in  a  comprehensive 
text -book,  as  if  it  were  to  be  learned  like 
arithmetic,  is  a  ludicrous  proceeding.  This  is 
not  teaching  literature  nor  giving  the  scholar 
a  love  of  good  reading.  It  is  merely  stuffing 
the  mind  with  names  and  dates,  which  are  not 
seen  to  have  any  relation  to  present  life,  and 
which  speedily  fade  out  of  the  mind.  The 
love  of  literature  is  not  to  be  attained  in  this 
way,  nor  in  any  way  except  by  reading  the  best 
literature. 

The  notion  that  literature  can  be  taken  up 
as  a  branch  of  education,  and  learned  at  the 
proper  time  and  when  studies  permit,  is  one 
of  the  most  farcical  in  our  scheme  of  edu 
cation.  It  is  only  matched  in  absurdity  by 
the  other  current  idea,  that  literature  is  some- 


THE   NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       285 

thing  separate  and  apart  from  general  knowl 
edge.  Here  is  the  whole  body  of  accumulated 
thought  and  experience  of  all  the  ages,  which 
indeed  forms  our  present  life  and  explains  it, 
existing  partly  in  tradition  and  training,  but 
more  largely  in  books ;  and  most  teachers 
think,  and  most  pupils  are  led  to  believe,  that 
this  most  important  former  of  the  mind,  maker 
of  character,  and  guide  to  action  can  be  ac 
quired  in  a  certain  number  of  lessons  out  of 
a  text-book !  Because  this  is  so,  young  men 
and  young  women  come  up  to  college  almost 
absolutely  ignorant  of  the  history  of  their 
race  and  of  the  ideas  that  have  made  our 
civilization.  Some  of  them  have  never  read 
a  book,  except  the  text- books  on  the  special 
ties  in  which  they  have  prepared  themselves 
for  examination.  We  have  a  saying  concern 
ing  people  whose  minds  appear  to  be  made  up 
of  dry,  isolated  facts,  that  they  have  no  at 
mosphere.  Well,  literature  is  the  atmosphere. 
In  it  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being, 
intellectually.  The  first  lesson  read  to,  or 
read  by,  the  child  should  begin  to  put  him 
in  relation  with  the  world  and  the  thought 
of  the  world. 

This  cannot  be  done  except  by  the  living 
teacher.     No  text-book,  no  one  reading-book 


286  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

or  series  of  reading-books,  will  do  it.  If  the 
teacher  is  only  the  text-book  orally  delivered, 
the  teacher  is  an  uninspired  machine.  We. 
must  revise  our  notions  of  the  function  of  the 
teacher  for  the  beginners.  The  teacher  is  to 
present  evidence  of  truth,  beauty,  art.  Where 
will  he  or  she  find  it  ?  Why,  in  experimental 
science,  if  you  please,  in  history,  but,  in  short, 
in  good  literature,  using  the  word  in  its  broad 
est  sense.  The  object  in  selecting  reading  for 
children  is  to  make  it  impossible  for  them  to 
see  any  evidence  except  the  best.  That  is  the 
teacher's  business,  and  how  few  understand 
their  business  !  How  few  are  educated !  In 
the  best  literature  we  find  truth  about  the 
world,  about  human  nature;  and  hence,  if 
children  read  that,  they  read  what  their  ex 
perience  will  verify.  I  am  told  that  publish 
ers  are  largely  at  fault  for  the  quality  of  the 
reading  used  in  schools — that  schools  would 
gladly  receive  the  good  literature  if  they  could 
get  it.  But  I  do  not  know,  in  this  case,  how 
much  the  demand  has  to  do  with  the  supply. 
I  am  certain,  however,  that  educated  teachers 
would  use  only  the  best  means  for  forming  the 
minds  and  enlightening  the  understanding  of 
their  pupils.  It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that 
reading,  silent  reading  done  by  the  scholar, 


THE    NOVEL   AND    THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       287 

is  not  learning  signs  and  calling  words;  it 
is  getting  thought.  If  children  are  to  get 
thought,  they  should  be  served  with  the  best 
—that  which  will  not  only  be  true,  but  appeal 
so  naturally  to  their  minds  that  they  will  pre 
fer  it  to  all  meaner  stuff.  If  it  is  true  that 
children  cannot  acquire  this  taste  at  home — 
and  it  is  true  for  the  vast  majority  of  Amer 
ican  children — then  it  must  be  given  in  the 
public  schools.  To  give  it  is  not  to  interrupt 
the  acquisition  of  other  knowledge ;  it  is  liter 
ally  to  open  the  door  to  all  knowledge. 

When  this  truth  is  recognized  in  the  common 
schools,  and  literature  is  given  its  proper  place, 
not  only  for  the  development  of  the  mind, 
but  as  the  most  easily-opened  door  to  history, 
art,  science,  general  intelligence,  we  shall  see 
the  taste  of  the  reading  public  in  the  United 
States  undergo  a  mighty  change.  It  will  not 
care  for  the  fiction  it  likes  at  present,  and 
which  does  little  more  than  enfeeble  its 
powers ;  and  then  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
fiction  will  rise  to  supply  the  demand  for 
something  better.  When  the  trash  does  not 
sell,  the  trash  will  not  be  produced,  and  those 
who  are  only  capable  of  supplying  the  present 
demand  will  perhaps  find  a  more  useful  occu 
pation.  It  will  be  again  evident  that  literature 


288  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

is  not  a  trade,  but  an  art  requiring  peculiar 
powers  and  patient  training.  When  people 
know  how  to  read,  authors  will  need  to  know 
how  to  write. 

In  all  other  pursuits  we  carefully  study  the 
relation  of  supply  to  demand.  Why  not  in 
literature  ?  Formerly,  when  readers  were 
comparatively  few,  and  were  of  a  class  that 
had  leisure  and  the  opportunity  of  cultivating 
the  taste,  books  were  generally  written  for 
this  class,  and  aimed  at  its  real  or  supposed 
capacities.  If  the  age  was  coarse  in  speech 
or  specially  affected  in  manner,  the  books  fol 
lowed  the  lead  given  by  the  demand;  but, 
coarse  or  affected,  they  had  the  quality  of  art 
demanded  by  the  best  existing  cultivation. 
Naturally,  when  the  art  of  reading  is  acquired 
by  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  whose  taste 
has  not  been  cultivated,  the  supply  for  this 
increased  demand  will,  more  or  less,  follow 
the  level  of  its  intelligence.  After  our  civil 
war  there  was  a  patriotic  desire  to  commem 
orate  the  heroic  sacrifices  of  our  soldiers  in 
monuments,  and  the  deeds  of  our  great  cap 
tains  in  statues.  This  noble  desire  was  not 
usually  accompanied  by  artistic  discrimination, 
and  the  land  is  filled  with  monuments  and 
statues  which  express  the  gratitude  of  the 


THE    NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL       289 

people.  The  coming  age  may  wish  to  replace 
them  by  images  and  structures  which  will  ex 
press  gratitude  and  patriotism  in  a  higher 
because  more  artistic  form.  In  the  matter  of 
art  the  development  is  distinctly  reflex.  The 
exhibition  of  works  of  genius  will  slowly  in 
struct  and  elevate  the  popular  taste,  and  in 
time  the  cultivated  popular  taste  will  reject 
mediocrity  and  demand  better  things.  Only 
a  little  while  ago  few  people  in  the  United 
States  knew  how  to  draw,  and  only  a  few  could 
tell  good  drawing  from  bad.  To  realize  the 
change  that  has  taken  place,  we  have  only  to 
recall  the  illustrations  in  books,  magazines, 
and  comic  newspapers  of  less  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago.  Foreign  travel,  foreign 
study,  and  the  importation  of  works  of  art 
(still  blindly  restricted  by  the  American  Con 
gress)  were  the  lessons  that  began  to  work  a 
change.  Now,  in  all  our  large  towns,  and 
even  in  hundreds  of  villages,  there  are  well- 
established  art  schools  ;  in  the  greater  cities, 
unions  and  associations,  under  the  guidance 
of  skilful  artists,  Avhere  five  or  six  hundred 
young  men  and  women  are  diligently,  day 
and  night,  learning  the  rudiments  of  art.  The 
result  is  already  apparent.  Excellent  drawing 
is  seen  in  illustrations  for  books  and  magazines, 


1U 


£90  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE  TO   LIFE 

in  the  satirical  and  comic  publications,  even 
in  the  advertisements  and  theatrical  posters. 
At  our  present  rate  of  progress,  the  drawings 
in  all  our  amusing  weeklies  will  soon  be  as 
good  as  those  in  the  Fliegende  Blatter.  The 
change  is  marvellous  ;  and  the  popular  taste 
has  so  improved  that  it  would  not  be  profit 
able  to  go  back  to  the  ill-drawn  illustrations 
of  twenty  years  ago.  But  as  to  fiction,  even 
if  the  writers  of  it  were  all  trained  in  it  as  an 
art,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  lift  the  public  taste  to 
their  artistic  level.  The  best  supply  in  this 
case  will  only  very  slowly  affect  the  quality 
of  the  demand.  When  the  poor  novel  sells 
vastly  better  than  the  good  novel,  the  poor 
will  be  produced  to  supply  the  demand,  the 
general  taste  will  be  still  further  lowered,  and 
the  power  of  discrimination  fade  out  more 
and  more.  What  is  true  of  the  novel  is  true 
of  all  other  literature.  Taste  for  it  must  be 
cultivated  in  childhood.  The  common  schools 
must  do  for  literature  what  the  art  schools 
are  doing  for  art.  Not  every  one  can  become 
an  artist,  not  every  one  can  become  a  writer — 
though  this  is  contrary  to  general  opinion; 
but  knowledge  to  distinguish  good  drawing 
from  bad  can  be  acquired  by  most  people,  and 
there  are  probably  few  minds  that  cannot,  by 


THE    NOVEL   AND   THE    COMMON    SCHOOL        291 

right  methods  applied  early,  be  led  to  prefer 
good  literature,  and  to  have  an  enjoyment  in 
it  in  proportion  to  its  sincerity,  naturalness, 
verity,  and  truth  to  life. 

It  is,  perhaps,  too  much  to  say  that  all  the 
American  novel  needs  for  its  development  is 
an  audience,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  an  audi 
ence  would  greatly  assist  it.  Evidence  is  on 
all  sides  of  a  fresh,  new,  wonderful  artistic 
development  in  America  in  drawing,  painting, 
sculpture,  in  instrumental  music  and  singing, 
and  in  literature.  The  promise  of  this  is  not 
only  in  the  climate,  the  free  republican  oppor 
tunity,  the  mixed  races  blending  the  traditions 
and  aptitudes  of  so  many  civilizations,  but  it 
is  in  a  certain  temperament  which  we  already 
recognize  as  American.  It  is  an  artistic  ten 
dency.  This  was  first  most  noticeable  in  Amer 
ican  women,  to  whom  the  art  of  dress  seemed 
to  come  by  nature,  and  the  art  of  being  agree 
able  to  be  easily  acquired. 

Already  writers  have  arisen  who  illustrate 
this  artistic  tendency  in  novels,  and  especially 
in  short  stories.  They  have  not  appeared  to 
owe  their  origin  to  any  special  literary  centre ; 
they  have  come  forward  in  the  South,  the 
West,  the  East.  Their  writings  have  to  a 
great  degree  (considering  our  pupilage  to  the 


292  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

literature  of  Great  Britain,  which  is  prolonged 
by  the  lack  of  an  international  copyright)  the 
stamp  of  originality,  of  naturalness,  of  sin 
cerity,  of  an  attempt  to  give  the  facts  of  life 
with  a  sense  of  their  artistic  value.  Their 
affiliation  is  rather  with  the  new  literatures 
of  France,  of  Eussia,  of  Spain,  than  with  the 
modern  fiction  of  England.  They  have  to 
compete  in  the  market  with  the  uncopyrighted 
literature  of  all  other  lands,  good  and  bad, 
especially  bad,  which  is  sold  for  little  more 
than  the  cost  of  the  paper  it  is  printed  on,  and 
badly  printed  at  that.  But  besides  this  fact, 
and  owing  to  a  public  taste  not  cultivated  or 
not  corrected  in  the  public  schools,  their  books 
do  not  sell  in  anything  like  the  quantity  that 
the  inferior,  mediocre,  other  home  novels  sell. 
Indeed,  but  for  the  intervention  of  the  maga 
zines,  few  of  the  best  writers  of  novels  and 
short  stories  could  earn  as  much  as  the  day 
laborer  earns.  In  sixty  millions  of  people,  all 
of  whom  are,  or  have  been,  in  reach  of  the 
common  school,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
their  audience  is  small. 

This  relation  between  the  fiction  that  is,  and 
that  which  is  to  be,  and  the  common  school 
is  not  fanciful.  The  lack  in  the  general  read 
ing  public,  in  the  novels  read  by  the  greater 


THE   NOVEL  AND  THE   COMMON   SCHOOL       293 

number  of  people,  and  in  the  common  school 
is  the  same — the  lack  of  inspiration  and  ideal 
ity.  The  common  school  does  not  cultivate 
the  literary  sense,  the  general  public  lacks 
literary  discrimination,  and  the  stories  and 
tales  either  produced  by  or  addressed  to  those 
who  have  little  ideality  simply  respond  to  the 
demand  of  the  times. 

It  is  already  evident,  both  in  positive  and 
negative  results,  both  in  the  schools  and  the 
general  public  taste,  that  literature  cannot  be 
set  aside  in  the  scheme  of  education ;  nay, 
that  it  is  of  the  first  importance.  The  teacher 
must  be  able  to  inspire  the  pupil ;  not  only  to 
awaken  eagerness  to  know,  but  to  kindle  the 
imagination.  The  value  of  the  Hindoo  or 
the  Greek  myth,  of  the  Roman  story,  of  the 
medieval  legend,  of  the  heroic  epic,  of  the 
lyric  poem,  of  the  classic  biography,  of  any 
genuine  piece  of  literature,  ancient  or  modern, 
is  not  in  the  knowledge  of  it  as  we  may  know 
the  rules  of  grammar  and  arithmetic  or  the 
formulas  of  a  science,  but  in  the  enlargement 
of  the  mind  to  a  conception  of  the  life  and 
development  of  the  race,  to  a  study  of  the 
motives  of  human  action,  to  a  comprehension 
of  history ;  so  that  the  mind  is  not  simply 
enriched,  but  becomes  discriminating,  and 


294  RELATION    OF    LITEEATUKE    TO    LIFE 

able  to  estimate  the  value  of  events  and  opin 
ions.  This  office  for  the  mind  acquaintance 
with  literature  can  alone  perform.  So  that, 
in  school,  literature  is  not  only,  as  I  have  said, 
the  easiest  open-door  to  all  else  desirable,  the 
best  literature  is  not  only  the  best  means  of 
awakening  the  young  mind,  the  stimulus  most 
congenial,  but  it  is  the  best  foundation  for 
broad  and  generous  culture.  Indeed,  without 
its  co-ordinating  influence  the  education  of 
the  common  school  is  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches.  Besides,  the  mind  aroused  to  historic 
consciousness,  kindled  in  itself  by  the  best 
that  has  been  said  and  done  in  all  ages,  is 
more  apt  in  the  pursuit,  intelligently,  of  any 
specialty;  so  that  the  shortest  road  to  the 
practical  education  so  much  insisted  on  in 
these  days  begins  in  the  awakening  of  the 
faculties  in  the  manner  described.  There  is 
no  doubt  of  the  value  of  manual  training  as 
an  aid  in  giving  definiteness,  directness,  exact-1 
ness  to  the  mind,  but  mere  technical  training 
alone  will  be  barren  of  those  results,  in  general 
discriminating  culture,  which  we  hope  to  see 
in  America. 

The  common  school  is  a  machine  of  incal 
culable  value.  It  is  not,  however,  automatic. 
If  it  is  a  mere  machine,  it  will  do  little  more 


THE    NOVEL   AND    THE    COMMON    SCHOOL        295 

to  lift  the  nation  than  the  mere  ability  to  read 
will  lift  it.  It  can  easily  be  made  to  inculcate 
a  taste  for  good  literature ;  it  can  be  a  power 
ful  influence  in  teaching  the  American  people 
what  to  read ;  and  upon  a  broadened,  elevated, 
discriminating  public  taste  depends  the  fate  of 
American  art,  of  American  fiction. 

It  is  not  an  inappropriate  corollary  to  be 
drawn  from  this  that  an  elevated  public  taste 
will  bring  about  a  truer  estimate  of  the  value 
of  a  genuine  literary  product.  An  invention 
which  increases  or  cheapens  the  conveniences 
or  comforts  of  life  may  be  a  fortune  to  its 
originator.  A  book  which  amuses,  or  con 
soles,  or  inspires;  which  contributes  to  the 
highest  intellectual  enjoyment  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  people ;  which  furnishes  sub 
stance  for  thought  or  for  conversation ;  which 
dispels  the  cares  and  lightens  the  burdens  of 
life ;  which  is  a  friend  when  friends  fail,  a 
companion  when  other  intercourse  wearies  or 
is  impossible,  for  a  year,  for  a  decade,  for  a 
generation  perhaps,  in  a  world  which  has  a 
proper  sense  of  values,  will  bring  a  like  com 
petence  to  its  author. 

(1S90.) 


A  NIGHT  IN   THE   GARDEN    OF   THE 
TUILEEIES 


A   NIGHT    IN    THE    GARDEN    OF    THE 
TUILERIES 

IT  was  in  the  time  of  the  Second  Empire. 
To  be  exact,  it  was  the  night  of  the  18th  of 
June,  1868 ;  I  remember  the  date,  because, 
contrary  to  the  astronomical  theory  of  short 
nights  at  this  season,  this  was  the  longest 
night  I  ever  saw.  It  was  the  loveliest  time 
of  the  year  in  Paris,  when  one  was  tempted 
to  lounge  all  clay  in  the  gardens  and  to  give 
to  sleep  none  of  the  balmy  nights  in  this  gay 
capital,  where  the  night  was  illuminated  like 
the  day,  and  some  new  pleasure  or  delight 
always  led  along  the  sparkling  hours.  Any 
day  the  Garden  of  the  Tuileries  was  a  micro 
cosm  repaying  study.  There  idle  Paris  sunned 
itself;  through  it  the  promenaders  flowed  from 
the  Kue  de  Eivoli  gate  by  the  palace  to  the 
entrance  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  out 
to  the  Champs-filysees  and  back  again ;  here 
in  the  north  grove  gathered  thousands  to 
hear  the  regimental  band  in  the  afternoon; 


300  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

children  chased  butterflies  about  the  flower 
beds  and  amid  the  tubs  of  orange  -  trees ; 
travellers,  guide-book  in  hand,  stood  resolute 
ly  and  incredulously  before  the  groups  of  stat 
uary,  wondering  what  that  Infant  was  do 
ing  with  the  snakes  and  why  the  recumbent 
figure  of  the  Nile  should  have  so  many  chil 
dren  climbing  over  him ;  or  watched  the  long 
fagade  of  the  palace  hour  after  hour,  in  the 
hope  of  catching  at  some  window  the  flutter 
of  a  royal  robe ;  and  swarthy,  turbaned  Zou 
aves,  erect,  lithe,  insouciant,  with  the  firm, 
springy  step  of  the  tiger,  lounged  along  the 
allees. 

Napoleon  was  at  home — a  fact  attested  by  a 
reversal  of  the  hospitable  rule  of  democracy, 
no  visitors  being  admitted  to  the  palace 
when  he  was  at  home.  The  private  garden, 
close  to  the  imperial  residence,  was  also 
closed  to  the  public,  who  in  vain  looked 
across  the  sunken  fence  to  the  parterres, 
fountains,  and  statues,  in  the  hope  that  the 
mysterious  man  would  come  out  there  and 
publicly  enjoy  himself.  But  he  never  came, 
though  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  looked  out 
of  the  windows  upon  the  beautiful  garden 
and  his  happy  Parisians,  upon  the  groves  of 
horse  -  chestnuts,  the  needle  -  like  fountain  be- 


A    NIGHT   IN  THE    GARDEN    OF  THE  TTJILERIES    801 

yond,  the  Column  of  Luxor,  up  the  famous 
and  shining  vista  terminated  by  the  Arch 
of  the  Star,  and  reflected  with  Christian  com 
placency  upon  the  greatness  of  a  monarch 
who  was  the  lord  of  such  splendors  and  the 
goodness  of  a  ruler  who  opened  them  all  to 
his  children.  Especially  when  the  western 
sunshine  streamed  down  over  it  all,  turning 
even  the  dust  of  the  atmosphere  into  gold 
and  emblazoning  the  windows  of  the  Tuile- 
ries  with  a  sort  of  historic  glory,  his  heart 
must  have  swelled  within  him  in  throbs  of 
imperial  exaltation.  It  is  the  fashion  nowa 
days  not  to  consider  him  a  great  man,  but  no 
one  pretends  to  measure  his  goodness. 

The  public  garden  of  the  Tuileries  was 
closed  at  dusk,  no  one  being  permitted  to 
remain  in  it  after  dark.  I  suppose  it  was 
not  safe  to  trust  the  Parisians  in  the  covert 
of  its  shades  after  nightfall,  and  no  one 
could  tell  what  foreign  fanatics  and  assassins 
might  do  if  they  were  permitted  to  pass  the 
night  so  near  the  imperial  residence.  At 
any  rate,  everybody  was  drummed  out  be 
fore  the  twilight  fairly  began,  and  at  the  most 
fascinating  hour  for  dreaming  in  the  ancient 
garden.  After  sundown  the  great  door  of 
the  Pavilion  de  FHorloge  swung  open  and 


302  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

there  issued  from  it  a  drum -corps,  which 
marched  across  the  private  garden  and  down 
the  broad  allee  of  the  public  garden,  drum 
ming  as  if  the  Judgment -day  were  at  hand, 
straight  to  the  great  gate  of  the  Place  de 
la  Concorde,  and  returning  by  a  side  allee, 
beating  up  every  covert  and  filling  all  the 
air  with  clamor  until  it  disappeared,  still 
thumping,  into  the  court  of  the  palace;  and 
all  the  square  seemed  to  ache  with  the  sound. 
Never  was  there  such  pounding  since  Thack 
eray's  old  Pierre,  who,  "just  to  keep  up  his 
drumming,  one  day  drummed  down  the  Bas 
tille": 

At  midnight  I  beat  the  tattoo, 
And  woke  up  the  Pikemen  of  Paris 
To  follow  the  bold  Barbaroux. 

On  the  waves  of  this  drumming  the  people 
poured  out  from  every  gate  of  the  garden,  un 
til  the  last  loiterer  passed  and  the  gendarmes 
closed  the  portals  for  the  night.  Before  the 
lamps  were  lighted  along  the  Rue  de  Eivoli 
and  in  the  great  square  of  the  Revolution, 
the  garden  was  left  to  the  silence  of  its  statues 
and  its  thousand  memories.  I  often  used  to 
wonder,  as  I  looked  through  the  iron  railing 
at  nightfall,  what  might  go  on  there  and 


A   NIGHT   IN  THE    GARDEN   OF  THE  TUILERIES    303 

whether  historic  shades  might  not  flit  about 
in  the  ghostly  walks. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  18th  of  June, 
after  a  long  walk  through  the  galleries  of 
the  Louvre,  and  excessively  weary,  I  sat 
down  to  rest  on  a  secluded  bench  in  the 
southern  grove  of  the  garden,  hidden  from 
view  by  the  tree-trunks.  "Where  I  sat  I  could 
see  the  old  men  and  children  in  that  sunny 
flower-garden,  La  Petite  Provence,  and  I 
could  see  the  great  fountain-basin  facing  the 
Porte  du  Pont-Tournant.  I  must  have  heard 
the  evening  drumming,  which  was  the  signal 
for  me  to  quit  the  garden ;  for  I  suppose  even 
the  dead  in  Paris  hear  that  and  are  sensitive 
to  the  throb  of  the  glory-calling  drum.  But 
if  I  did  hear  it,  it  was  only  like  an  echo  of 
the  past,  and  I  did  not  heed  it  any  more  than 
Napoleon  in  his  tomb  at  the  Invalides  heeds, 
through  the  drawn  curtain,  the  chanting  of 
the  daily  mass.  Overcome  with  fatigue,  I 
must  have  slept  soundly. 

When  I  awoke  it  was  dark  under  the  trees. 
I  started  up  and  went  into  the  broad  prom 
enade.  The  garden  was  deserted ;  I  could 
hear  the  plash  of  the  fountains,  but  no  other 
sound  therein.  Lights  were  gleaming  from 
the  windows  of  the  Tuileries,  lights  blazed 


804  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

along  the  Hue  de  Kivoli,  dotted  the  great 
Square,  and  glowed  for  miles  up  the  Champs- 
Ely  sees.  There  were  the  steady  roar  of  wheels 
and  the  tramping  of  feet  without,  but  within 
was  the  stillness  of  death. 

What  should  I  do?  I  am  not  naturally 
nervous,  but  to  be  caught  lurking  in  the  Tui- 
leries  Garden  in  the  night  would  involve  me 
in  the  gravest  peril.  The  simple  way  would 
have  been  to  have  gone  to  the  gate  nearest 
the  Pavilion  de  Marsan,  and  said  to  the  po 
liceman  on  duty  there  that  I  had  inadver 
tently  fallen  asleep,  that  I  was  usually  a  wide 
awake  citizen  of  the  land  that  Lafayette  went 
to  save,  that  I  wanted  my  dinner,  and  would 
like  to  get  out.  I  walked  down  near  enough 
to  the  gate  to  see  the  policeman,  but  my 
courage  failed.  Before  I  could  stammer  out 
half  that  explanation  to  him  in  his  trifling 
language  (which  foreigners  are  mockingly  told 
is  the  best  in  the  world  for  conversation),  he 
would  either  have  slipped  his  hateful  rapier 
through  my  body,  or  have  raised  an  alarm  and 
called  out  the  guards  of  the  palace  to  hunt  me 
down  like  a  rabbit. 

A  man  in  the  Tuileries  Garden  at  night ! 
an  assassin !  a  conspirator !  one  of  the  Carbo 
nari,  perhaps  a  dozen  of  them — who  knows? — 


A    NIGHT  IN    THE    GARDEN    OF  THE  TUILEKIES    305 

Orsini  bombs,  gunpowder,  Greek -fire,  Polish 
refugees,  murder,  emeutes,  REVOLUTION  ! 

JSTo,  I'm  not  going  to  speak  to  that  person 
in  the  cocked  hat  and  dress-coat  under  these 
circumstances.  Conversation  with  him  out  of 
the  best  phrase-books  would  be  uninteresting. 
Diplomatic  row  between  the  two  countries 
would  be  the  least  dreaded  result  of  it.  A 
suspected  conspirator  against  the  life  of  Na 
poleon,  without  a  chance  for  explanation,  I 
saw  myself  clubbed,  gagged,  bound,  searched 
(my  minute  notes  of  the  Tuileries  confiscated), 
and  trundled  off  to  the  Conciergerie,  and  hung 
up  to  the  ceiling  in  an  iron  cage  there,  like 
Ravaillac. 

I  drew  back  into  the  shade  and  rapidly 
walked  to  the  western  gate.  It  was  closed,  of 
course.  On  the  gate-piers  stand  the  winged 
steeds  of  Marly,  never  less  admired  than  by 
me  at  that  moment.  They  interested  me  less 
than  a  group  of  the  Corps  d'Afrique,  who 
lounged  outside,  guarding  the  entrance  from 
the  square,  and  unsuspicious  that  any  assassin 
was  trying  to  get  out.  I  could  see  the  gleam 
of  the  lamps  on  their  bayonets  and  hear  their 
soft  tread.  Ask  them  to  let  me  out  ?  How 
nimbly  they  would  have  scaled  the  fence  and 
transfixed  me !  They  like  to  do  such  things. 

20 


306  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

No,  no  —  whatever  I  do,  I  must  keep  away 
from  the  clutches  of  these  cats  of  Africa. 

And  enough  there  was  to  do,  if  I  had  been  in 
a  mind  to  do  it.  All  the  seats  to  sit  in,  all  the 
statuary  to  inspect,  all  the  flowers  to  smell. 
The  southern  terrace  overlooking  the  Seine 
was  closed,  or  I  might  have  amused  myself 
with  the  toy  railway  of  the  Prince  Imperial 
that  ran  nearly  the  whole  length  of  it,  with 
its  switches  and  turnouts  and  houses ;  or  I 
might  have  passed  delightful  hours  there 
watching  the  lights  along  the  river  and  the 
blazing  illumination  on  the  amusement  halls. 
But  I  ascended  the  familiar  northern  terrace 
and  wandered  amid  its  bowers,  in  company 
with  Hercules,  Meleager,  and  other  worthies  I 
I  knew  only  by  sight,  smelling  the  orange- 
blossoms,  and  trying  to  fix  the  site  of  the  old 
rid  ing -school  where  the  National  Assembly 
sat  in  1789. 

It  must  have  been  eleven  o'clock  when  I 
found  myself  down  by  the  private  garden  next 
the  palace.  Many  of  the  lights  in  the  offices 
of  the  household  had  been  extinguished,  but 
the  private  apartments  of  the  Emperor  in  the 
wing  south  of  the  central  pavilion  were  still 
illuminated.  The  Emperor  evidently  had  not 
so  much  desire  to  go  to  bed  as  I  had.  I  knew 


A  NIGHT   IN   THE   GAKDEN   OF  THE  TUILEEIES    307 

the  windows  of  his  petits  appartements —  as 
what  good  American  did  not? — and  I  wondered 
if  he  was  just  then  taking  a  little  supper,  if  he 
had  bidden  good-night  to  Eugenie,  if  he  was 
alone  in  his  room,  reflecting  upon  his  grandeur 
and  thinking  what  suit  he  should  wear  on  the 
morrow  in  his  ride  to  the  Bois.  Perhaps  he  was 
dictating  an  editorial  for  the  official  journal ; 
perhaps  he  was  according  an  interview  to  the 
correspondent  of  the  London  Glorifier ;  per 
haps  one  of  the  Abbotts  was  with  him.  Or 
was  he  composing  one  of  those  important 
love-letters  of  state  to  Madame  Blank  which 
have  since  delighted  the  lovers  of  literature? 
I  am  not  a  spy,  and  I  scorn  to  look  into  peo 
ple's  windows  late  at  night,  but  I  was  lone 
some  and  hungry,  and  all  that  square  round 
about  swarmed  with  imperial  guards,  police 
men,  keen-scented  Zouaves,  and  nobody  knows 
what  other  suspicious  folk.  If  Napoleon  had 
known  that  there  was  a 

MAN    IN    THE    GARDEN  ! 

I  suppose  he  would  have  called  up  his  family, 
waked  the  drum- corps,  sent  for  the  Prefect  of 
Police,  put  on  the  alert  the  sergents  de  ville, 
ordered  under  arms  a  regiment  of  the  Imperial 
Guards,  and  made  it  unpleasant  for  the  Man. 


308  RELATION    OF    LITERATURE    TO    LIFE 

All  these  thoughts  passed  through  my  mind, 
not  with  the  rapidity  of  lightning,  as  is  usual 
in  such  cases,  but  with  the  slowness  of  con 
viction.  If  I  should  be  discovered,  death 
would  only  stare  me  in  the  face  about  a  min 
ute.  If  he  waited  five  minutes,  who  would 
believe  my  story  of  going  to  sleep  and  not 
hearing  the  drums  ?  And  if  it  were  true,  why 
didn't  I  go  at  once  to  the  gate,  and  not  lurk 
round  there  all  night  like  another  Clement? 
And  then  I  wondered  if  it  was  not  the  dis 
agreeable  habit  of  some  night-patrol  or  other 
to  beat  round  the  garden  before  the  Sire  went 
to  bed  for  good,  to  find  just  such  characters  as 
I  was  gradually  getting  to  feel  myself  to  be. 

But  nobody  came.  Twelve  o'clock,  one 
o'clock  sounded  from  the  tower  of  the  church 
of  St.- Germain -1'Auxerrois,  from  whose  bel 
fry  the  signal  was  given  for  the  beginning  of 
the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  —  the  same 
bells  that  tolled  all  that  dreadful  night  while 
the  slaughter  went  on,  while  the  effeminate 
Charles  IX.  fired  from  the  windows  of  the 
Louvre  upon  stray  fugitives  on  the  quay — 
bells  the  reminiscent  sound  of  which,  a  legend 
(which  I  fear  is  not  true)  says,  at  length  drove 
Catharine  de'  Medici  from  the  Tuileries. 

One  o'clock !    The  lights  were  going   out 


A  NIGHT    IN  THE    GAKDEN    OF  THE    TTJILEKIES    309 

in  the  Tuileries,  had  nearly  all  gone  out.  I 
wondered  if  the  suspicious  and  timid  and 
wasteful  Emperor  would  keep  the  gas  burn 
ing  all  night  in  his  room.  The  night-roar  of 
Paris  still  went  on,  sounding  always  to  for 
eign  ears  like  the  beginning  of  a  revolution. 
As  I  stood  there,  looking  at  the  window  that 
interested  me  most,  the  curtains  were  drawn, 
the  window  was  opened,  and  a  form  appeared 
in  a  white  robe.  I  had  never  seen  the  Em 
peror  before  in  a  night-gown,  but  I  should 
have  known  him  among  a  thousand.  The  Man 
of  Destiny  had  on  a  white  cotton  night-cap, 
with  a  peaked  top  and  no  tassel.  It  was  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world ;  he  was  tak 
ing  a  last  look  over  his  restless  Paris  before 
he  turned  in.  What  if  he  should  see  me  !  I 
respected  that  last  look  and  withdrew  into  the 
shadow.  Tired  and  hungry,  I  sat  down  to 
reflect  upon  the  pleasures  of  the  gay  capital. 

One  o'clock  and  a  half !  I  had  presence  of 
mind  enough  to  wind  my  watch ;  indeed,  I  was 
not  likely  to  forget  that,  for  time  hung  heavily 
on  my  hands.  It  was  a  gay  capital.  Would 
it  never  put  out  its  lights,  and  cease  its  uproar, 
and  leave  me  to  my  reflections  ?  In  less  than 
an  hour  the  country  legions  would  invade  the 
city,  the  market-wagons  would  rumble  down 


310  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

the  streets,  the  vegetable-man  and  the  straw 
berry-woman,  the  fishmongers  and  the  greens- 
venders  would  begin  their  melodious  cries, 
and  there  would  be  no  repose  for  a  man  even 
in  a  public  garden.  It  is  secluded  enough, 
with  the  gates  locked,  and  there  is  plenty  of 
room  to  turn  over  and  change  position ;  but 
it  is  a  wakeful  situation  at  the  best,  a  haunting 
sort  of  place,  and  I  was  not  sure  it  was  not 
haunted. 

I  had  often  wondered,  as  I  strolled  about  the 
place  in  the  daytime  or  peered  through  the  iron 
fence  at  dusk,  if  strange  things  did  not  go  on 
here  at  night,  with  this  crowd  of  effigies  of  per 
sons  historical  and  more  or  less  mythological, 
in  this  garden  peopled  with  the  representatives 
of  the  dead,  and  no  doubt  by  the  shades  of 
kings  and  queens  and  courtiers,  intrigantes  and 
panders,  priests  and  soldiers,  who  lived  once 
in  this  old  pile — real  shades,  which  are  always 
invisible  in  the  sunlight.  They  have  local  at 
tachments,  I  suppose.  Can  science  tell  when 
they  depart  forever  from  the  scenes  of  their  ob 
jective  intrusion  into  the  affairs  of  this  world, 
or  how  long  they  are  permitted  to  revisit 
them  ?  Is  it  true  that  in  certain  spiritual  states, 
say  of  isolation  or  intense  nervous  alertness, 
we  can  see  them  as  they  can  see  each  other  ? 


A  NIGHT   IN  THE   GARDEN   OF  THE   TUILERIES     311 

There  was  I — the  I  catalogued  in  the  police 
description  —  present  in  that  garden,  yet  so 
earnestly  longing  to  be  somewhere  else  that 
would  it  be  wonderful  if  my  eidolon  was  some 
where  else  and  could  be  seen  ?  —  though  not 
by  a  policeman,  for  policemen  have  no  spirit 
ual  vision. 

There  were  no  policemen  in  the  garden,  that 
I  was  certain  of ;  but  a  little  after  half-past 
one  I  saw  a  Man,  not  a  man  I  had  ever  seen 
before,  clad  in  doublet  and  hose,  with  a  short 
cloak  and  a  felt  cap  with  a  white  plume,  come 
out  of  the  Pavilion  de  Flore  and  turn  down 
the  quay  towards  the  house — I  had  seen  that 
afternoon  where  it  stood  —  of  the  beautiful 
Gabrielle  d'Estrees.  I  might  have  been  mis 
taken  but  for  the  fact  that,  just  at  this  moment, 
a  window  opened  in  the  wing  of  the  same 
pavilion,  and  an  effeminate,  boyish  face,  weak 
and  cruel,  with  a  crown  on  its  head,  appeared 
and  looked  down  into  the  shadow  of  tho  build 
ing  as  if  its  owner  saw  what  I  had  seen.  And 
there  was  nothing  remarkable  in  this,  except 
that  nowadays  kings  do  not  wear  crowns  at 
night.  It  occurred  to  me  that  there  was  a 
masquerade  going  on  in  the  Tuileries,  though 
I  heard  no  music,  except  the  tinkle  of,  it  might 
be,  a  harp,  or  "the  lascivious  pleasing  of  a 


312  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

lute,"  and  I  walked  along  down  towards  the 
central  pavilion.  I  was  just  in  time  to  see  two 
ladies  emerge  from  it  and  disappear,  whisper 
ing  together,  in  the  shrubbery;  the  one  old, 
tall,  and  dark,  with  the  Italian  complexion, 
in  a  black  robe,  and  the  other  young,  petite^ 
extraordinarily  handsome,  and  clad  in  light 
and  bridal  stuffs,  yet  both  with  the  same  wily 
look  that  set  me  thinking  on  poisons,  and 
with  a  grace  and  a  subtle  carriage  of  deceit 
that  could  be  common  only  to  mother  and 
daughter.  I  didn't  choose  to  walk  any  farther 
in  the  part  of  the  garden  they  had  chosen  for 
a  night  promenade,  and  turned  off  abruptly. 

What? 

There,  on  the  bench  of  the  marble  hemi- 
cycle  in  the  north  grove,  sat  a  row  of  gray- 
beards,  old  men  in  the  costume  of  the  first 
Revolution,  a  sort  of  serene  and  benignant 
Areopagus.  In  the  cleared  space  before  them 
were  a  crowd  of  youths  and  maidens,  specta 
tors  and  participants  in  the  Floral  Games 
which  were  about  to  commence;  behind  the 
old  men  stood  attendants  who  bore  chaplets 
of  flowers,  the  prizes  in  the  games.  The 
young  men  wore  short  red  tunics  with  copper 
belts,  formerly  worn  by  Roman  lads  at  the 
ludi,  and  the  girls  tunics  of  white  with  loos- 


A   NIGHT   IN  THE    GARDEN    OF  THE  TUILERIES     313 

ened  girdles,  leaving  their  limbs  unrestrained 
for  dancing,  leaping,  or  running;  their  hair 
was  confined  only  loy  a  fillet  about  the  head. 
The  pipers  began  to  play  and  the  dancers  to 
move  in  rhythmic  measures,  with  the  slow  and 
languid  grace  of  those  full  of  sweet  wine  and 
the  new  joy  of  the  Spring,  according  to  the 
habits  of  the  Golden  Age,  which  had  come 
again  by  decree  in  Paris.  This  was  the  be 
ginning  of  the  classic  sports,  but  it  is  not  pos 
sible  for  a  modern  pen  to  describe  particu 
larly  the  Floral  Games.  I  remember  that 
the  Convention  ordered  the  placing  of  these 
hemicycles  in  the  garden,  and  they  were  exe 
cuted  from  Robespierre's  designs ;  but  I  sup 
pose  I  am  the  only  person  who  ever  saw  the 
games  played  that  were  expected  to  be  played 
before  them.  It  was  a  curious  coincidence 
that  the  little  livid-green  man  was  also  there, 
leaning  against  a  tree  and  looking  on  with 
a  half  sneer.  It  seemed  to  me  an  odd  classic 
revival,  but  then  Paris  has  spasms  of  that,  at 
the  old  Theatre  Frangais  and  elsewhere. 

Pipes  in  the  garden,  lutes  in  the  palace, 
paganism,  Revolution  —  the  situation  was  be 
coming  mixed,  and  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised  at  a  ghostly  procession  from  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  through  the  western 


314  RELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

gates,  of  the  thousands  of  headless  nobility, 
victims  of  the  axe  and  the  basket ;  but,  thank 
Heaven,  nothing  of  that  sort  appeared  to  add 
to  the  wonders  of  the  night ;  yet,  as  I  turned 
a  moment  from  the  dancers,  I  thought  I  saw 
something  move  in  the  shrubbery.  The  Laoc- 
oon?  It  could  not  be.  The  arms  moving? 
Yes.  As  I  drew  nearer  the  arms  distinctly 
moved,  putting  away  at  length  the  coiling 
serpent,  and  pushing  from  the  pedestal  the 
old-men  boys,  his  comrades  in  agony.  Laoc- 
oon  shut  his  mouth,  which  had  been  stretched 
open  for  about  eighteen  centuries,  untwisted 
the  last  coil  of  the  snake,  and  stepped  down, 
a  free  man.  After  this  it  did  not  surprise  me 
to  see  Spartacus  also  step  down  and  approach 
him,  and  the  two  ancients  square  off  for  fisti 
cuffs,  as  if  they  had  done  it  often  before,  en 
joying  at  night  the  release  from  the  everlast 
ing  pillory  of  art.  It  was  the  hour  of  releases, 
and  I  found  myself  in  a  moment  in  the  midst 
of  a  "  classic  revival,"  whimsical  beyond  de 
scription.  ^Eneas  hastened  to  deposit  his  aged 
father  in  a  heap  on  the  gravel  and  ran  after 
the  Sylvan  Nymphs  ;  Theseus  gave  the  Mino 
taur  a  respite ;  Themistocles  was  bending  over 
the  dying  Spartan,  who  was  coming  to  life ; 
Yenus  Pudica  was  waltzing  about  the  diagonal 


A   NIGHT  IN  THE   GARDEN   OF  THE   TUILEKIES    315 

basin  with  Antinous ;  Ascanius  was  playing 
marbles  with  the  infant  Hercules.  In  this  un 
real  phantasmagoria  it  was  a  relief  to  me  to  see 
walking  in  the  area  of  the  private  garden  two 
men :  the  one  a  stately  person  with  a  kingly 
air,  a  handsome  face,  his  head  covered  with  a 
huge  wig  that  fell  upon  his  shoulders ;  the 
other  a  farmer-like  man,  stout  and  ungracious, 
the  counterpart  of  the  pictures  of  the  intendant 
Colbert.  He  was  pointing  up  to  the  palace, 
and  seemed  to  be  speaking  of  some  alterations, 
to  which  talk  the  other  listened  impatiently. 
I  wondered  what  Napoleon,  who  by  this  time 
was  probably  dreaming  of  Mexico,  would  have 
said  if  he  had  looked  out  and  seen,  not  one 
man  in  the  garden,  but  dozens  of  men,  and  all 
the  stir  that  I  saw ;  if  he  had  known,  indeed, 
that  the  Great  Monarch  was  walking  under 
his  windows. 

I  said  it  was  a  relief  to  me  to  see  two  real 
men,  but  I  had  no  reason  to  complain  of  soli 
tude  thereafter  till  daybreak.  That  any  one 
saw  or  noticed  me  I  doubt,  and  I  soon  became 
so  reassured  that  I  had  more  delight  than  fear 
in  watching  the  coming  and  going  of  per 
sonages  I  had  supposed  dead  a  hundred  years 
and  more ;  the  appearance  at  windows  of  faces 
lovely,  faces  sad,  faces  terror-stricken;  the 


316  RELATION   OF    LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

opening  of  casements  and  the  dropping  of 
billets  into  the  garden;  the  flutter  of  disap 
pearing  robes ;  the  faint  sounds  of  revels  from 
the  interior  of  the  palace;  the  hurrying  of 
feet,  the  flashing  of  lights,  the  clink  of  steel, 
that  told  of  partings  and  sudden  armings,  and 
the  presence  of  a  king  that  will  be  denied  at 
no  doors.  I  saw  through  the  windows  of  the 
long  Galerie  de  Diane  the  roues  of  the  Eegen- 
cy  at  supper,  and  at  table  with  them  a  dark, 
semi-barbarian  little  man  in  a  coat  of  Eussian 
sable,  the  coolest  head  in  Europe  at  a  drink 
ing-bout.  I  saw  enter  the  south  pavilion  a 
tall  lady  in  black,  with  the  air  of  a  royal 
procuress;  and  presently  crossed  the  garden 
and  disappeared  in  the  pavilion  a  young 
Parisian  girl,  and  then  another  and  another, 
a  flock  of  innocents,  and  I  thought  instantly 
of  the  dreadful  Pare  aux  Cerfs  at  Versailles. 

So  wrought  upon  was  I  by  the  sight  of 
this  infamy  that  I  scarcely  noticed  the  in 
coming  of  a  royal  train  at  the  southern  end 
of  the  palace,  and  notably  in  it  a  lady  with 
light  hair  and  noble  mien,  and  the  look  in 
her  face  of  a  hunted  lioness  at  bay.  I  say 
scarcely,  for  hardly  had  the  royal  cortege 
passed  within,  when  there  arose  a  great 
clamor  in  the  inner  court,  like  the  roar  of  an 


A   NIGHT    IN  THE   GARDEN    OF  THE  TUILERIES     317 

angry  multitude,  a  scuffling  of  many  feet, 
firing  of  guns,  thrusting  of  pikes,  followed 
by  yells  of  defiance  in  mingled  French  and 
German,  the  pitching  of  Swiss  Guards  from 
doorways  and  windows,  and  the  flashing  of 
flambeaux  that  ran  hither  and  thither.  "  Oho !" 
I  said,  "  Paris  has  come  to  call  upon  its  sov 
ereign  ;  the  pikemen  of  Paris,  led  by  the  bold 
Barbaroux." 

The  tumult  subsided  as  suddenly  as  it  had 
risen,  hushed,  I  imagined,  by  the  jarring  of 
cannon  from  the  direction  of  St.-Roch ;  and 
in  the  quiet  I  saw  a  little  soldier  alight  at  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli  gate — a  little  man  whom  you 
might  mistake  for  a  corporal  of  the  guard— 
with  a  wild,  coarse  -  featured  Corsican  (say, 
rather,  Basque)  face,  his  disordered  chestnut 
hair  darkened  to  black  locks  by  the  use  of 
pomatum — a  face  selfish  and  false,  but  deter 
mined  as  fate.  So  this  was  the  beginning  of 
the  Napoleon  "  legend " ;  and  by-and-by  this 
coarse  head  will  be  idealized  into  the  Roman 
Emperor  type,  in  which  I  myself  might  have 
believed  but  for  the  revelations  of  the  night 
of  strange  adventure. 

What  is  history  ?  What  is  this  drama  and 
spectacle,  that  has  been  put  forth  as  history, 
but  a  cover  for  petty  intrigue,  and  deceit,  and 


318  KELATION   OF   LITERATURE   TO   LIFE 

selfishness,  and  cruelty?  A  man  shut  into 
the  Tuileries  Garden  begins  to  think  that  it 
is  all  an  illusion,  the  trick  of  a  disordered 
fancy.  Who  was  Grand,  who  was  "Well- 
Beloved,  who  was  Desired,  who  was  the  Idol 
of  the  French,  who  was  worthy  to  be  called 
a  King  of  the  Citizens?  Oh  for  the  light  of 
day! 

And  it  came,  faint  and  tremulous,  touching 
the  terraces  of  the  palace  and  the  Column  of 
Luxor.  But  what  procession  was  that  moving 
along  the  southern  terrace?  A  squad  of  the 
National  Guard  on  horseback,  a  score  or  so  of 
King's  officers,  a  King  on  foot,  walking  with 
uncertain  step,  a  Queen  leaning  on  his  arm, 
both  habited  in  black,  moved  out  of  the  west 
ern  gate.  The  King  and  the  Queen  paused 
a  moment  on  the  very  spot  where  Louis  XVI. 
was  beheaded,  and  then  got  into  a  carriage 
drawn  by  one  horse  and  were  driven  rapidly 
along  the  quays  in  the  direction  of  St.-Cloud. 
And  again  Revolution,  on  the  heels  of  the 
fugitives,  poured  into  the  old  palace  and  filled 
it  with  its  tatterdemalions. 

Enough  for  me  that  daylight  began  to 
broaden.  "  Sleep  on,"  I  said,  "  O  real  Presi 
dent,  real  Emperor  (by  the  grace  of  coup 
d'etat)  at  last,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  virt- 


A   NIGHT   IN  THE   GARDEN   OF  THE  TUILEEIES     319 

uous  court  in  Europe,  loved  of  good  Ameri 
cans,  eternally  established  in  the  hearts  of 
your  devoted  Parisians!  Peace  to  the  pal 
ace  and  peace  to  its  lovely  garden,  of  both 
of  which  I  have  had  quite  enough  for  one 
night !" 

The  sun  came  up,  and,  as  I  looked  about,  all 
the  shades  and  concourse  of  the  night  had 
vanished.  Day  had  begun  in  the  vast  city, 
with  all  its  roar  and  tumult;  but  the  garden 
gates  would  not  open  till  seven,  and  I  must 
not  be  seen  before  the  early  stragglers  should 
enter  and  give  me  a  chance  of  escape.  In 
my  circumstances  I  would  rather  be  the  first 
to  enter  than  the  first  to  go  out  in  the  morn 
ing,  past  those  lynx-eyed  gendarmes.  From 
my  covert  I  eagerly  watched  for  my  coming 
deliverers.  The  first  to  appear  was  a  chiffon- 
nier,  who  threw  his  sack  and  pick  down  by 
the  basin,  bathed  his  face,  and  drank  from  his 
hand.  It  seemed  to  me  almost  like  an  act 
of  worship,  and  I  would  have  embraced  that 
rag-picker  as  a  brother.  But  I  knew  that 
such  a  proceeding,  in  the  name  even  of  eyalite 
and  fratemite  would  have  been  misinter 
preted  ;  and  I  waited  till  two  and  three  and 
a  dozen  entered  by  this  gate  and  that,  and  I 
was  at  full  liberty  to  stretch  my  limbs  and 


320  RELATION    OF   LITERATURE   TO    LIFE 

walk  out  upon  the  quay  as  nonchalant  as  if  I 
had  been  taking  a  morning  stroll. 

I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  police  of 
Paris  never  knew  where  I  spent  the  night 
of  the  18th  of  June.  It  must  have  mystified 
them. 

(1872.) 


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